Florida's Center for the Advancement of Child Welfare Practice Registers Nearly 3900 Users in First Month
The Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF) has awarded a 3 year grant to the University of South Florida’s Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute (FMHI) to develop Florida’s Center for the Advancement of Child Welfare Practice, a statewide informational web portal that will ultimately result in the successful advancement of child welfare practice throughout the state. As one of the largest behavioral services research centers in the United States, FMHI is uniquely qualified, having provided research, training, education, and support services to mental health and child welfare professionals, consumer organizations and behavioral health advocates for more than thirty years.
The Center’s Web Portal and related services began full operation on July 10, 2007 and currently has nearly 3,900 registered users. Eligible users are Florida’s Child Protective Investigation staff, supervisors, and managers; Community-Based Care Lead Agency and their provider network’s child welfare staff, and other child welfare professionals in Florida such as child welfare legal services, quality assurance and contract management professionals. The Center anticipates expansion of user groups in the future to include professionals from other state agencies and the court system.
Due to the many issues that face children, families and communities, child protection and welfare services are complex and involve a number of disciplines and services critical to developing successful strategies and outcomes for children. Substance abuse, mental health, domestic violence, and sexual abuse are among the various issues that research, practice, and service systems are challenged to understand and address. Finding information relevant to Florida’s local systems of care can also be time consuming and difficult using available generic web-based search tools.
“ Our goal is to help bring synergy among the varying agencies with improved communication tools that are efficient, cost-effective, and encourage collaboration, as well as help take away the labor intensive work associated with getting information,” said Don Policella, Center Director and project principal investigator. “The Center will continue to develop user-friendly and customer-driven processes and designs that will allow easy access to computer-based information 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”
Center staff have created interactive tools such as statewide local service directories that help child welfare professionals find services anywhere more easily. National reporting, missing children information, and searching tools are also available in one easy to find location on the web portal.
The Center’s services include:
A fully searchable on-line knowledge library of strategically chosen information customers report they want and need. These include Florida- specific policies, embedded links to relevant Florida State and Federal statutes and rules, recent decision memoranda or policy interpretations, fiscal requirements, national best practices, research, and frequently asked questions with authoritative answers.
Access to an interactive on-line information-sharing portal where DCF program and outsourced community-based care and child protective investigations staff can communicate and interact with each other, share documents and promising practices, engage in joint planning, and develop collaborative strategies and initiative. This component will features video conferencing, video streamed educational and training presentations, Live Meeting and other interactive functions designed to facilitate learning, information sharing, and identification of training and technical issues for inclusion in the Center's services.
Expert Consultation and technical assistance is available on request for any of the Center’s customers including DCF child protective investigations and case management agencies. Such expert consultation will be provided by leading experts from around the nation who have responded to USF’s Request for Proposals. These services are fully funded by the Center and are tailored to the customers’ specific content needs. The Center's automated web portal is utilized to provide access to information about each of these expert services and requests are generated automatically. Expertise is not be limited to program or administrative content areas; as functionality expands, experts in quality management, training, licensing and recruitment, and other support functions may be added as the priorities of users are identified.
“We are proud to be a part of Florida’s Department of Children and Families’ efforts to advance the state’s child welfare practice in such a multidisciplinary way,” said Policella. “The Department of Children and Families has worked diligently with us to ensure this service meets the needs of child welfare professionals and significantly contributes to Florida’s efforts to advance practice, communication, collaboration, and outcomes for our children and families. “Children brought to the attention of child welfare services are not always accommodated by the standard service array. Cultural diversity, developmental disabilities, and varying degrees of trauma-related symptoms are among the issues that must also be included in our best practice knowledge base, innovative skill set, and system of care strategies. We look forward to being the gatherers and facilitators of sharing such important knowledge.”
The Center’s staff has scheduled training session throughout the state to assist users with learning how to maximize the sites resources and gather their input for new tools and features that meet customer’s needs.
For additional information, contact Don Policella at 813-974-8531.