Child Welfare: About Us

Child Welfare Initiative
The social work department is a partner with the state of Tennessee and other accredited universities in the state. This partnership initiative seeks to strengthen the ranks of professionally trained social workers within the state child-welfare system by educating new and existing staff and by financially assisting social work students through a stipend program.

Stipend Program
The Child Welfare Stipend Program invites students to apply in their sophomore year for a stipend and tuition program that defrays education costs.  When a student is accepted into the program, the Department of Children’s Services will pay up to twenty thousand dollars of educational costs for the student's junior and senior years.  In return, each student will complete a two-year curriculum with an emphasis in child welfare and participate in a field placement in DCS in the senior year.  In exchange, the student agrees to work for DCS in Tennessee for two years.  New graduates entering DCS as employees can look forward to exciting work and competitive salaries.

Training Program
We are proud to have four highly skilled social workers in our department whose job is to train new and existing staff in the Department of Children’s Services.  Each of us has had diverse professional experiences. Each one of us, however, is firmly committed to the common goal of improving the social-work abilities of DCS employees.  We dedicate our full time to educating DCS employees in a strengths-based, family-focused social work approach to assisting needy children and families.  Our goal is to fill the DCS system with workers who are sensitive to the sufferings of hurting people.