UIC RECEIVES GRANT FOR CHILD WELFARE TRAINEESHIPS

UIC News Release
May 6, 2009

CONTACT: Jeffron Boynes, (312) 413-8702, jboynes@uic.edu

UIC RECEIVES GRANT FOR CHILD WELFARE TRAINEESHIPS

The Jane Addams College of Social Work at the University of Illinois at
Chicago has been selected as one of only nine social work programs in
the United States -- and the only one in Illinois -- to receive a
five-year $538,000 grant from the National Child Welfare Workforce
Institute to administer a new Child Welfare Traineeship Project.

The project will help ensure that professionally educated social
workers are prepared for child welfare work.

"Research shows that people who have social work degrees stay longer in
the field," says Alan Dettlaff, principal investigator and assistant
professor in the college.

The highly competitive award will provide a $9,000 stipend to selected
students in the final year of the master of social work program who are
committed to a career in child welfare. It also enables the college to
create a five-year Jane Addams Child Welfare Traineeship Project for
students who want to enter the field of child welfare.

In addition to financial assistance, students will participate in an
educational program designed to provide the knowledge and skills
necessary to address the complex needs of children and families in
Illinois who come to the attention of the child welfare system.

The traineeship project is a collaboration of the college, the Illinois
Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS), ChildServ, Jane
Addams Hull House Association, the Illinois African American Family
Commission, and the Child Care Association of Illinois. Through this
collaboration, students who are accepted into the program will receive
enhanced training in specially developed field units in DCFS, Jane
Addams Hull House Association, or ChildServ.

These field units will provide specialized training that reinforces the
curriculum and provides opportunities for students to develop and
practice their skills. Each of the community partners will also
participate in the process of selecting students and identifying
curricular improvements in response to emerging needs of children and
families in Illinois.

The project is funded by the National Child Welfare Workforce Institute
of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.

UIC ranks among the nation's top 50 universities in federal research
funding and is Chicago's largest university with 25,000 students,
12,000 faculty and staff, 15 colleges and the state's major public
medical center. A hallmark of the campus is the Great Cities
Commitment, through which UIC faculty, students and staff engage with
community, corporate, foundation and government partners in hundreds of
programs to improve the quality of life in metropolitan areas around
the world.

For more information about UIC, please visit www.uic.edu.

- UIC -

NOTE: Please refer to the institution as the University of Illinois at
Chicago on first reference and UIC on second reference.
"University of Illinois" and "U. of I." are often assumed to refer to
our sister campus in Urbana-Champaign.