The National Center for Child Welfare Excellence, Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College through an exciting partnership with New York City Administration for Children Services (ACS) develops, implements, and evaluates transfer of learning strategies for the ACS Workforce Institute. The ACS Workforce Institute (WI) is a state-of-the-art professional development institute that strengthens skills and provides support to child welfare and juvenile justice frontline staff as they strengthen and support New York City’s families and children. The ACS Workforce Institute offers professional learning initiatives that move beyond the classroom to enhance skill development for new and seasoned ACS and provider agency staff. https://www.nycacstraining.org
Through the Silberman School of Social Work and ACS partnership, the Research Associate will join a dynamic team responsible for implementing and evaluating the Supporting Knowledge into Practice (SKIP) Initiative. The Research Associate will work closely with a team comprised of both ACS and CUNY Hunter employees as well as other leaders in the ACS Division of Policy, Planning, and Measurement to manage and support training and transfer of learning evaluation activities including instrument development, data collection, analysis, and reporting. Other evaluation activities include the development of knowledge tests, collecting learner feedback, and managing and analyzing data generated from 10,000 participants annually through multiple surveys powered by Qualtrics. Personnel, learning management, and survey data are merged to understand the relative impact of individual characteristics, organizational characteristics, and reinforcement strategies on the transfer of learning of coaching skills by Supervisors and Managers and strengths-based engagement, assessment, and interpersonal helping skills by caseworkers and case planners. Participants are followed over time to assess the degree to which competent and consistent skills are applied to improve the overall quality of services provided by the public and private child welfare system in New York City. The Evaluation team uses the Kirkpatrick model of evaluating training efficacy to measure four levels: (1) reactions; (2) learning; (3) transfer; and (4) organizational outcomes. The evaluation team produces real time reports and dashboards so that results will inform ongoing program development and quality improvement.
The Research Associate will join a team of CUNY colleagues working collaboratively with key stakeholders in the ACS Division of Child Protection, Division of Youth and Family Justice, the Division of Policy, Planning, and Measurement, and Private Providers that implement foster car and prevention services to manage, analyze, and report on data from complex data systems.