Want to help kids? UCF has $12K for you
Hoping to enlist a better-educated generation of child-welfare workers, UCF on Thursday announced a statewide initiative that will offer social-work students up to $12,000 each to participate in special training and internships — provided they agree to work for the state for at least two years after graduation.
“I always wanted to work in this field,” said senior Maggie Vera of Orlando, who expects to graduate with a bachelor’s degree in social work next spring. “I’ve learned the importance of the child-parent relationship, and how vital it is to healthy child development, and I’d really like to be part of the solution — and the stipend would really help with my student loans.”
Funded for the first two years
with a $5.3 million grant — most of it from the federal government — the program makes the University of Central Florida the lead in implementing the program among the 14 Florida universities, both public and private, that have schools of social work.
During a news conference to unveil the details, officials from UCF and the Florida Department of Children and Families called it an “amazing day” for helping future kids who face abuse and neglect by their families.
“This is a great moment when academia can fulfill one of its missions: to help make our world better,” said Dean Michael Frumkin of UCF’s College of Health and Public Affairs. “UCF can work with universities across the state and with DCF to usher in change that will help protect some of our most vulnerable citizens.”
The money covers both the cost of hiring additional faculty and the student stipends of up to $6,000 a year for two years. Students who accept will take specialized courses that include much of what they’ll need to start working — such as how to assess high-risk families and ways of making sure kids stay safe.
The effort comes in the wake of sometimes-scathing criticism from state lawmakers over past DCF tragedies in which workers were aware of warning signs in troubled families but allowed children to stay in the home anyway. As part of a slate of reforms passed in 2014, the Legislature called for at least half of all child protective investigators and case managers to have either a bachelor’s or master’s degree in social work by 2019.
Statewide, only 18 percent of investigators have such a degree now. The percentage for case managers hasn’t been tracked to this point, officials said.
Salaries for those positions start at just less than $40,000 a year.
“One of the challenges we have in child welfare is [high] turnover,” said Bill D’Aiuto, director of DCF’s central region. “Our turnover rates are over 30 percent statewide. … But as we bring these workers on and stabilize our work force, it will help bring caseloads down and help with overall retention — which helps with the quality of the investigations.”
Already 33 other states have similar programs.
Bonnie Yegidis, director of UCF’s School of Social Work — and instrumental in bringing the initiative to UCF — said teachers have been spreading word of the plan to their students since summer, trying to gauge interest. About 200 stipends will be offered statewide starting in January, with 25 reserved for UCF, and 300 the following year.
“The response has been strong,” Yegidis said. “We believe this program will fundamentally transform the practice of child welfare in Florida.”
Students who accept the stipend will be required to take two new courses that cover training they would otherwise undergo after being hired by DCF. That requirement in addition to internships at both DCF and one of the private agencies that contract with the state to do case management will mean that students graduate ready to start working almost immediately.
They also will have passed background checks before starting their jobs.
For each year students receive a stipend, they will be required to spend a year working for DCF or one of its contracted case-management agencies, such as Community-Based Care of Central Florida, which supervises children in foster care and handles adoptions. If students don’t fulfill their work obligation, they must repay the stipend.
There will definitely be jobs available for them, D’Aiuto said.
For Vera, the only disappointment is that the program didn’t start sooner, because she only has one year left to take advantage of it. The long hours, mediocre pay and public scrutiny that often come with the job don’t dishearten her.
“A lot of the public perception is that all social workers do is come into homes and take children,” Vera said. “But I want to help children that are out in the streets, that may not have parents, that may not have a safe place to sleep or something to eat. I’ve seen the difference that social workers can make.”