In 2008, the program expanded statewide through the school of social work’s distance education option. Each year, full-time and part-time students entered the program and received a specialized child welfare services curriculum, field integration seminars, and practicum placement in child welfare settings.
The Hawaiʻi Child Welfare Education Collaboration (HCWEC) was a successful workforce recruitment and training program that provided a continuous stream of qualified social workers to fill vacant child welfare positions. Thompson School of Social Work successfully ran the Title IV-E Hawaii Child Welfare Education Collaboration. RECRUITMENT AND RETENTION EFFORTS THROUGH THE COLLABORATIONīetween 19, the Department of Human Services-Child Welfare Services branch, and the University of Hawaiʻi Myron B.
In 2016, the HCWEC Project was revitalized with 10 new Scholars. Between then and 2008, a total of 109 Scholars were accepted into the program with a 92% graduation rate. The first HCWEC cohort was admitted in 1998. The HCWEC Project was developed as a workforce recruitment and training program. However, there is concern about impending retirements as more than thirty-six per cent of staff is fifty years of age or older, and almost thirty per cent of staff is in their forties. As of 2012, thirty-six per cent of the child welfare services workforce had twenty-one or more years of experience. The department will face a critical shortage of experienced child welfare services workers and leaders in the coming five years. By nature, child welfare services also experience attrition of its valuable workforce due to the intense and difficult circumstances under which child welfare services employees work. Twenty-one per cent of the department’s child welfare services positions were eliminated during the 2009-2010 reduction in force. The department of human services has lost a large portion of its child welfare services staff since 2009 and is still working to rebuild with qualified experienced social workers.
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