December/January 2013Vol. 13, No. 11Special-Issue Journal Commemorates CB Centennial
In commemoration of the Children's Bureau's centennial, the Journal of Public Child Welfare published a special double issue focused on the Children's Bureau's contributions to the field of child welfare. Children's Bureau staff authored the first article about the Bureau's history of support to the child welfare workforce. The final article, written by staff from the Bureau and Child Welfare Information Gateway, outlines a vision for the future of child welfare.
One article explores the Children's Bureau's contributions to social work education. The authors note that the increase in reports of child abuse and neglect in the 1960s prompted many States to increase their numbers of child welfare personnel. However, States required little in the way of specialized social work education; many required only a bachelor's degree or just a high school diploma. With the passage of the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act in 1980, States were allowed to apply title IV-E funds toward social work education. Over the past 25 years, the Children's Bureau has made professionalizing social work a priority, providing funds for, among other things, recruiting more social workers to the field.
The article "Twenty-Five Years of the Children's Bureau Investment in Social Work Education" highlights the Bureau's efforts to strengthen the social work profession and examines the results of a survey sent to all social work programs in the United States.
Other articles explore issues such as:
- Successful student recruitment efforts
- A historical look at the private sector's role in child welfare
- Tribal-State intergovernmental agreements
- Findings from a community-based title IV-E waiver demonstration program to increase family engagement
The Journal of Public Child Welfare, 6(4), 2012, "Special Issue: One Hundred Years of the U.S. Children's Bureau Professionalizing and Improving Child Welfare," includes several free articles, and the entire issue is available for purchase here:
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15548732.2012.715068
For more information on the Children's Bureau's 100-year history, visit the Bureau's centennial website:
Related Item
Children's Bureau Express has produced two series of articles highlighting the Children's Bureau's centennial. The first Centennial Series addressed some of the social issues, practices, and policies that laid the groundwork for the creation of the Children's Bureau. The second Centennial Series, CB Decade-by-Decade, examines highlights from each decade of the Children's Bureau's first 100 years.