Culturally Competent Systems of Care with Hispanic Children and Families is a collaboration between the University of Texas at Arlington School of Social Work (UTA-SSW), the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS), and the University of Illinois at Chicago Jane Addams College of Social Work (UIC). This project involved the development of a curriculum designed to train DFPS staff on culturally competent practice with Latino children and families. The goal of this curriculum was to build competency for work with this population using a Systems of Care model. It was expected that this approach would prepare DFPS staff to be more culturally competent in addressing the needs of Latino children and families. In addition, the project sought to use this curriculum to enhance the knowledge and skills of UTA-SSW students as they prepared to practice with children and families in Texas. Thus, this project had two primary goals: 1) to develop a training curriculum to improve the knowledge and skills of DFPS supervisors and caseworkers in cultural competence, development of systems of care in the Latino community, and use of systems of care for effective services with Latino children and families; and 2) to enhance the UTA-SSW curricula to improve the knowledge and skills of social work students regarding Latino culture and the development and utilization of systems of care for children and families engaged with the child welfare system. (Description from source)
