The Child Welfare Cartel, Redux

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

9-1-2016

Abstract

In response to “The Child Welfare Cartel,” defenders of the National Child Welfare Workforce Institute (NCWWI) make three errors: First, restricting federal funds to schools of social work is not authorized by the statute cited in the creation of NCWWI. Second, social work is not the only discipline engaged in child welfare, denying the emergence of Child Advocacy Studies as a competitor. Third, randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are not implausible in child welfare due to the complex issues presented by maltreated children and troubled families. This incorrect contention ignores the numerous field experiments deployed in psychology and nursing to the considerable benefit of those disciplines. Apologists for NCWWI thus make assertions typical of a cartel, resulting in outcomes that are unnecessarily substandard and expensive. If social workers are superior to nonprofessionals in child welfare, defenders of NCWWI should conduct an RCT putting that claim to test.

Publication Title

Research on Social Work Practice

First Page Number

519

Last Page Number

524

DOI

10.1177/1049731516637123

This document is currently not available here.

Share

COinS