Tear Down Those Walls: the Future of Graduate Education in Child and Family Advocacy
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Tear Down Those Walls: the Future of Graduate Education in Child and Family Advocacy Cindy W. Christian 1,2 & Kara R. Finck 3 & Cynthia Connolly 4 & Sara Jaffee 5 & Johanna Greeson 6 & Antonio Garcia 7 & Stacey L. Carlough 8 & Caroline L. Watts 9 Accepted: 8 July 2020 / Published online: 6 August 2020 # Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Abstract The future of graduate education in child welfare requires specialized advanced degrees that are defined by interprofessional training and education. Disrupting the current silos in graduate education will result in a workforce able to integrate knowledge across disciplines with the ultimate goals of ending child abuse and neglect and improving outcomes for families. Although there are numerous challenges to implementing interprofessional education (IPE) in this context, research and existing programs highlight the potential for comprehensive reform of current practice and education. The authors describe a university-community partnership model for a master’s degree program in child and family advocacy that exemplifies the opportunities and value of IPE. In so doing, they articulate an approach for addressing historical barriers from academia and professional disciplines to disrupt traditional structures and move towards a twenty-first century model of workforce development that best serves the needs of vulnerable, high-risk families. Keywords Child maltreatment . Graduate education . Interprofessional education
We live in complex times, with both enormous societal problems and tremendous opportunities for innovation and reform. Solving society’s greatest challenges requires a workforce whose members are educated with a depth of knowledge in their chosen field and a breadth of knowledge that allows for integration, synthesis, and meaningful collaboration across disciplines. As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., reminds us, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly” (1964). Nowhere is this network of mutuality more evident than in the field of child maltreatment, a pervasive problem ripe for interdisciplinary training solutions. This paper proposes to disrupt the enduring siloes of graduate education for counselors, doctors, lawyers, nurses, psychologists, * Cindy W. Christian [email protected] Extended author information available on the last page of the article
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International Journal on Child Maltreatment: Research, Policy and Practice (2020) 3:307–315
social workers, and teachers—the professionals who educate, serve, and treat children and families. We envision a new paradigm for training future leaders in child welfare to prevent child maltreatment and prioritize holistic child and family well-being.
The Roots of our Current Lack of Interdisciplinary Collaboration in Child Welfare Currently, the systems and professionals that serve the most marginalized children and families struggle to engage in interdisciplinary collaboration, thereby failing to adequately
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