Family & Children’s Resource Program
Connecting Social Workers to Child Welfare Legal Teams
CORE TEAM
Emily Putnam-Hornstein, Laura Phipps, Vilma Gimenez, Chrystal Coble, Jonathan Rockoff, Iris Cheng
Since 1992, North Carolina’s Family & Children’s Resource Program (FCRP) has used training, evaluation, and technical assistance to improve the well-being of children and families in North Carolina and beyond. Under the directorship of Emily Putnam-Hornstein, Ph.D., FCRP’s 23-member team now includes curriculum developers, trainers, facilitators, researchers, instructional designers, programmers, and technical staff.
Through its partnership with its majority funder, the North Carolina Division of Social Services, FCRP develops and delivers dozens of in-service training courses for child welfare professionals. In 2020-22, FCRP offered 36 in-service courses for more than 3,500 registrants, as well as providing group facilitation, designing and conducting readiness assessments, and helping organizations implement practice improvement efforts. FCRP also maintains ncswLearn.org, the state division’s learning management system (LMS), which gives access to training for North Carolina’s child welfare and adult services workers.
Building on its 30 years of sparking and sustaining positive change among the state’s human service workforce, FCRP recently launched a new initiative that trains and pays for social workers to be placed on legal teams representing parents in child welfare cases. The goal: to improve family outcomes in abuse and dependency cases. Known as the Interdisciplinary Representation Program (IRP), this new initiative pairs experienced social workers with attorneys to provide legal representation to parents in child welfare cases. These social workers will help promote parent engagement, understanding of the child welfare process, and connection to services, which are tailored to a parent’s individual needs.
“We’re excited to be part of this effort to add social workers to defense teams in child welfare cases,” said FCRP Director Laura Phipps. “A social worker teamed with a parent’s attorney can help parents navigate court processes and enhance the overall quality of the legal representation parents receive.”
With this program, North Carolina seeks to improve parent representation, reduce time in foster care, and achieve permanency faster.
WENDY SOTOLONGO, JD,
Chief Parent Defender at North Carolina’s Office of Indigent Services
North Carolina’s program is based on successful models in New York, Washington, and Colorado, said Wendy Sotolongo, chief parent defender at North Carolina’s Office of Indigent Services. Based on previous evidence from these programs, including a social worker on the parents’ legal team can lead to several positive outcomes for families.
“With this program, North Carolina seeks to improve parent representation, reduce time in foster care, and achieve permanency faster,” Sotolongo said.
Sotolongo worked for three years to help secure federal funding for the program and partnered with FCRP to train and support the social workers who will work on IRP cases.
“From the beginning, we wanted to ensure that there was a professional development piece for the social workers who are going to be defense social workers,” said Sotolongo. “I didn't want defense social workers out there trying to figure out what the job was, where they were supposed to be reporting, or what their responsibilities were. I wanted a cohesive team feeling, so they would know that someone was looking after them, they would have reasonable caseloads, and they felt they were getting the support they needed to do the work.”
With the first cohort of IRP social workers set to receive their assignments in coming months, FCRP is poised to further expand its statewide impact on the lives of NC’s children and families and those who serve them.
by Jordan Wingate
The Big Picture
- FCRP began work in 1992 and has been working for North Carolina’s children and families for 30 years.
- In 2020-22, FCRP offered 36 courses for child welfare workers, supervisors, and agency leaders, serving more than 3,500 registrants.
- FCRP has published Children’s Services Practice Notes for 27 years.
- FCRP has published Fostering Perspectives for 25 years.
- FCRP helped create and maintains FosteringNC.org, which offers free online training for foster and adoptive parents and kinship caregivers.
- FCRP developed ncswlearn.org, a learning management system that the state uses for all child welfare training.
Advancing equity. Transforming systems. Improving lives.
UNC School of Social Work
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Tate-Turner-Kuralt Building
325 Pittsboro Street | Campus Box 3550
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3550