Director:
Ph.D., Professor
The complexities of the contemporary
American family call for innovative and coordinated approaches to service
delivery between health, mental health and protective service agencies.
The Judith Granger Birmingham Center for
Child Welfare serves as a research and resource center for Texas, the
Southwest, and the nation in the advancement and dissemination of knowledge
to improve the conditions of vulnerable children and their families.
Research, education, and dissemination efforts address the basic rights of
children to be nurtured and protected by their families with the support of
their communities.
The current child welfare system lacks
coordination and resources to meet the complex needs of children today. As a
result, advocates for children and families are calling for major reform of
the system and the services it provides.
The overarching goal of the Center is to
help equip child welfare practitioners with current, detailed, and
scientific knowledge about effective practice models, ways to support the
adequate development of children and families, and strategies to preserve
families. The foundation of knowledge in the past thirty years has resulted
in an extensive body of knowledge concerning the causes and correlates of
risk in parent-child relationships, practice models that can ameliorate
these risk factors for families, and concrete steps in decision making that
can identify the most appropriate services to achieve positive outcomes for
children.
The University of Texas at Arlington
School of Social Work, through the Judith Granger Birmingham Center for
Child Welfare, has become an important part of the national child welfare
reform effort. No other such center exists in the Southwest, and few others
exist in the country. The School is uniquely qualified as the site of the
Center because of the combination of a nationally recognized faculty with
expertise in child welfare practice innovations, technology development, and
a long-standing partnership with child welfare practitioners at the local,
state, and national level.
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To develop, conduct, and
disseminate major research to address important policies and
practice influencing the lives of children and families.
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To serve as a resource center to
child welfare advocates, practitioners, and policy makers.
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To professionalize child welfare
practice through the training of professional social workers for a
career in child welfare services, and the development of a
certification program for practitioners.
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To deliver competency-based
training to child welfare practitioners to improve service delivery,
and
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To provide assistance to, and
promote collaboration among, national, state, and local public and
private child welfare institutions.
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