Strategic Plan Progress Report Out April 2021
Committee Name: Title IVE Admissions Committee
Committee Members: Alice Egan, Audrey Conn, Ellen Smith, Jessica Pac, Cindy Waldeck, Nancy Ortegon-Johnson, & Michael Hoffmeister
Strategic Plan Goal(s) written out and identified as either Goal 1, 2 or 3
Goal 1: Increase the diversity of our students, staff, faculty, and other governing bodies.
Goal 3: Equip our students, staff, faculty, alumni, and social work community partners to be social justice leaders who can address diversity, equity, and inclusion in their lives and careers.
Progress since February 2021
Goal 1 was: “Diversify the Title IV-E Program’s student body through recruitment and admissions while simultaneously addressing inclusivity within the program by purposeful building of connections and programming on anti-racism and equity in child welfare.”
- Held a zoom recruitment panel, where current Title IV-E students as well as IV-E alums spoke to prospective students about their experiences in the program and in the field of public child welfare.
- Title IV-E Program Coordinator participated in a financial resources panel presentation for the “visit day” held by the School of Social Work, to inform students about Title IV-E admissions and to answer questions.
- Recruitment efforts have increased our overall number of applicants by 12%, as well as the racial diversity in our applicant pool. This year, 28.5% of our applicants identified as BIPOC, as compared to 20% of our applicant pool last year.
Goal 3 was: “Ensure students, alumni, and community partners have concrete tools to affect change that supports diversity, equity and inclusion at their local agency.”
- In February, we held a Title IV-E Book Club meeting following the Racial Injustice Conference, where we discussed this year’s IV-E Book Club book by Patrice Cullors, in relation to her presentation at the conference. Child Welfare faculty were also invited to read this book and participate.
- In early March, the IV-E Program invited two PhD candidates to attend an SMT Meeting with IV-E students to discuss their research in crucial areas of diversity and intersectionality in child welfare.
- Co-sponsored a training in March entitled, Practice Skills for Working with LGBTQ+ Youth in Foster Care. This training had 237 registrants, and was very well-received, including participants asking our school to bring them back for a “part 2” of this training.
- On April 16th, we held our Spring Public Child Welfare Dialogue with national expert Ruth Paris to discuss her compassionate, strengths-focused work and research with parent clients who struggle with opioid addiction. 290 people registered for this training, including students, faculty, and community members.