Desperate for child social workers, Michigan tries new tack: $20K for college

• Michigan desperately needs social workers — in schools, in behavioral health and in child welfare
• A new state program gives cash to social work students in exchange for their commitment to work in child welfare
• Since January, 46 students at five universities have signed on

Michigan desperately needs social workers to take on some of the toughest and least coveted jobs in the field — protecting children from abuse and neglect, working with families in crisis, and developing strong foster families.

Now the state’s offering students cold hard cash if they sign onto these roles. And it’s working.

The $1.7 million program launched in January, and already 46 students have enrolled. Five — already students when the program began this year — graduated this year. This fall, 29 students will begin training. 

For every $5,000 students receive through the state’s new Title IV– E Fellowship — up to $20,000 each — they must commit to working four months in a high-need community, including tribal, rural and underserved populations. They can work for the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, as well as tribal or private agencies that specialize in foster care. 

It’s a cash incentive that both eases the stress of bills during college and, just as importantly, may turn some students to consider a career choice they may have otherwise overlooked, said Polly McCollum. If all goes well, McCollum will have her master’s degree in social work by the end of summer.

And once they’re in their new roles in the state’s network of child protective services, foster care, adoption services and licensing, the commitments they made will help them stay put for that first rough year or so, she said.

Child welfare work at times can be “a hard, hard, hard job,” said McCollum, who works for MDHHS in Genesee County as an intern while she finishes her degree.

“But when you stick it out for a while, you see more and more situations, and you get more comfortable,” she said.

That confidence, she said, in turn will help keep young social workers in their roles and make them expert at what they do, she said.

Elizabeth Montemayor, child welfare programming coordinator at MSU and a long-time child welfare worker, agrees.

“The first few months are very overwhelming,” she said.

In addition to learning complex policy, new child welfare workers must learn to navigate communications with families in crisis.

Alongside the money, the students get more training specific to work in child welfare. They’ll learn about family dynamics, the court system and a child’s needs in foster care.

That preparation is key to keeping child welfare workers in that steep leaving curve of the first few months, Montemayor said.

Related:

• In Michigan mental health crisis, a tug-of-war over too few social workers
• Audit: Michigan child welfare system slow, leaving kids at risk
• Michigan’s child welfare system is improving, but its leaders just left

The program is a shift in long-time staff recruitment policies in the state. In the medical fields, for example, state and federal funds are used to pay down student loans in exchange for work commitments, for example.

But in this case — as with a $5 million program to recruit social workers into behavioral health jobs announced in June — the money can be used however the student decides.

It’s an innovative approach in a state that has struggled with staffing shortages in all fields, and acutely in social work and behavioral health, as Bridge Michigan has previously reported.

Despite massive improvements in its caseloads, Michigan faces a shortage of child welfare workers, as do other states. It remains under a federal court order to overhaul its system, the result of a 2006 lawsuit that remains open. It desperately needs more foster families, experts have told Bridge. And earlier this month, the auditor general accused the state’s child welfare system of moving too slowly on investigations — accusations that the head of MDHHS said were politically driven.

But nearly everyone agrees on this much: Recruiting and retaining good child welfare workers is tough.

“It’s not just Michigan. The nation is in crisis” because of the shortage, MSU’s Montemayor said. 

In her case, McCollum was a new mom, student, and full-time foster care services specialist for MDHHS at Genesee County. She and her husband were living in a home that felt increasingly cramped with a new baby and the stress of juggling school and work, too. They also need a new bathroom.

House renovations were what she most needed at that time, said McCollum, now 37 years old and just months shy of graduating with her master’s degree in social work.

“Giving people money — it really does change the game,” she said.

The funds are drawn from the federally funded Title IV-E child welfare funds. MDHHS, which administers the funds, has allocated $1.7 million for the program.

For now, most of the incentives are for master’s-level students, although the program will expand to include more bachelor’s-level students, according to Kathryn Maguire-Jack, whose research at the University of Michigan focuses on child abuse and neglect prevention. She is director of U-M’s Title IV-E grant program.

Five public universities have opened the program to students. In addition to MSU and U-M, Wayne State University, Central Michigan University, and Western Michigan University also participate. Additional schools are expected to join in the future, according to MDHHS.