From the Executive Director: The Exhilaration and Distress of Releasing the CWS Primer

A year of research and writing has culminated in the release of our updated Child Welfare Services primer.

While it is typically thrilling (and exhausting) to complete a long project, this conclusion is punctuated not only by exclamation points and asteriks to acknowledge incredible partners, but also by an ellipses. . . . as we all wait for cuts to the programs and services that support our state’s most vulnerable children and families.

I am among the many pragmatists struggling with the state’s deficit, knowing that cuts are inevitable.  But what causes my own personal stay-up-at-night distress is our lack of shared values:  How can we not draw a protective circle around services dedicated to abused and neglected children?

Until the budget passes, we won’t know how deep the cuts will be to the state’s child welfare system.

To those local and state leaders who will then be forced to pick up the pieces, who will once again have to bypass a focus on prevention to deal with immediate crises, we send our support and thanks for shouldering the responsibilities we wish all Californians would share.

We also have considerable appreciation for an extaordinary team that produced this most recent primer.

Diane F. Reed, primary author of the Primer, was a fabulous partner during the past year of research and writing.

Thanks also to Stuart Oppenheim and Danna Fabella at the Child and Family Policy Institute of California (CFPIC), our primary partners in the updating of the primer.  We could not have asked for more knowledgeable and responsive colleagues (who we could absolutely count on to open up emails after 10 PM!).

An invaluable cadre of experts responded to frequent queries and helped research current law, practice and statistics.  Our thanks go out to Greg Rose, Deputy Director for Children and Family Services at the California Department of Social Services; Lee Ann Kelly at the Office of Child Abuse Prevention (OCAP) ; Diana Boyer, Senior Policy Analyst, County Welfare Directors Association of California; Kathy Watkins, Legislative Program Manager, San Bernardino County Human Services System; and Barbara Needell, Research Specialist at the U.C. Berkeley Center for Social Services Research, and the entire Linkages Advisory Committee.

Support to update the CWS Primer and a forthcoming CalWORKs primer was provided by the Zellerbach Family Foundation (ZFF).  ZFF also funded the original publications, and we would like to especially acknowledge ZFF’s extraordinary Program Executive, Ellen Walker.

Thanks also to Deborah Yip-Lowery and the Resource Center for Family Focused Practice (RCFFP), The Center for Human Services, U.C. Davis Extension, for printing the primer through a grant from the California Department of Social Services’ Office of Child Abuse Prevention.

And we can’t say enough about the talented team at Uptown Studios—their design expertise, attention to detail, and extraordinary collegiality.

For printed copies, contact Monica Caprio at mcaprio@unexmail.ucdavis.edu or (530) 757-8643.

Please share comments and any corrections about this primer in the comment section under Publications.