The 2005 Child welfare Practitioners’ Conference was held November 3, 2005 as part of the first day’s offerings at the annual BPD conference.  The Practitioners’ Conference, which was sponsored by Texas Christian University Department of Social work, was attended by child protection workers, social work educators, and child welfare interns.  The day-long conference included three workshops on child welfare topics.

The first workshop was: Child Welfare Reforms.  Will They Keep Children Safe?  Professor Ruth McRoy, the presenter, recently retired from the University of Texas.  She introduced the subject of disproportionality in the foster care system.  According to Professor McRoy, statistics show that far more African American children are placed in foster care than children in other ethnic groups.  Even when the high rate of poverty among African Americans is taken into account as a contributing factor to increased foster care placement, the disproportionality still exists.  Statistics also show a disproportionality of outcome in that African American children stay in the system for longer periods of time than children from other ethnic groups.

The second workshop, Collaborative Responses in Addressing Disproportionality, was presented by Ms. Deborah Green, Professor Rowena Fong, and Ms. Carolyne Rodriguez.  Ms. Green is the State Director for Disproportionality for Texas Child Protective Services, Professor Fong works in the Social Work Department at the University of Texas, and Ms. Rodriguez is the director of Texas State Strategy for the Casey Family Programs.  Together the presenters personify the collaborative response that Texas has created to address the problem of disproportionality.  The goals of the collaboration are to reduce the number of African American children entering the foster care system and to improve the outcomes for those who are in foster care.  The state-wide effort addresses the issue of disproportionality at all levels of the CPS system and works to increase cross-systems communication.  One outcome of the collaboration is Project HOPE, started in May of 2002, a community-focused, data-driven program that seeks to improve services being offered to foster children and their families and to identify gaps in these services.

The third workshop of the practitioners’ conference was Family-Centered Treatment Planning:  Ethical Practice for Child Welfare.  If was presented by Professor Ellen Darden and Professor Sarah Whittaker, who are both on the social work faculty at Concord University.  Their presentation explained why they believe family-centered treatment planning (FCTP) should be the preferred method of working with families of children in foster care and gave a detailed plan for establishing FCTP.  Even though this model may be more difficult for workers, FCTP addresses the needs of each member of the family, uses the strengths of family members, and provides for collaboration among service providers to create maximum benefit for the family.  Family Centered Treatment Planning is a West Virginia initiative that draws upon the strengths and client-centered perspectives of Dennis Saleeby, as outlined in his book, The Strengths Perspective in Social Work Practice, 3^rd edition, 1997.