Logo of the U.S. Children’s Bureau, a division of the Administration on Children and Families a the Department of Health and Human Services.
Consulting firm ICF will continue to oversee the federal Child Welfare Capacity Building Center for States, the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) main conduit of training and technical assistance to state and local child welfare agencies.
The Fairfax, Va.-based company was tapped five years ago to build the center, which replaced a previous arrangement of six different national resource centers. The company also holds the contract to operate the Child Welfare Information Gateway, the public information system for HHS on child welfare issues.
“ICF has built a strong collaborative relationship with the Children’s Bureau through our work on creating the Center and our long-standing support of the Information Gateway,” said Jennifer Welham, senior vice president for ICF, in a statement released last week. “We look forward to continuing to support them in their efforts to identify effective prevention strategies, develop best practices for building capacity around change management and implement sustainable child welfare programs.”
The center is led by Maggie Bishop, who served as New Hampshire’s child welfare director between 2006 and 2014.
In addition to the Center for States, HHS also operates a Center for Courts, which is overseen by the American Bar Association, National Council on Juvenile and Family Court Judges and the National Center for State Courts; and a Center for Tribes, led by the Butler Institute for Families, the Tribal Law and Policy Institute, the Cutler Institute and the research and evaluation firm Westat.
James Bell Associates is in the process of evaluating the impact and effectiveness of the three centers. Information on state-by-state contact points for the centers can be accessed by clicking here.
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