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Doing
What’s Best for
Missouri’s Children
Editor’s Note: Cindy Wilkinson benefited from the federal Title IV-E program, which provides stipends for students earning their bachelor’s and master’s degrees in social work. The program’s purpose is to prepare qualified social workers using a curriculum that is relevant to current issues in public child welfare and that addresses the specific needs of Missouri’s children and families.
By Lisa Schwartz
One of the most interesting comments Cindy
Wilkinson made about her experience as a School
of Social Work graduate student was this: "After 10 years
of working in the field as a case worker, doing everything from
investigating, to providing family-centered services, to working
in alternative care in a multi-county circuit in Missouri's Northwest,
light bulbs began going off in my head while I sat in my graduate
courses. 'Aha,' I thought, 'this is the reason for this particular
practice.'" After obtaining her master's degree in Social
Work in 1996, Wilkinson returned to the field, in fact to the
office in which she had originally worked, with a greater understanding
of her field and effective ways to help families.
Wilkinson has worked in the field for 20 years, beginning her
career in human services in 1984, but without professional training
in social work. Her undergraduate degree, in what was then "family
and environmental science" (now called human
development and family studies), augmented by three weeks
of training provided by the Children's Division (formerly called
the Division of Family Services) in the Missouri Department of
Social Services, served as the foundation for beginning a career
as a social service worker. When she learned about the availability
of support through the Title IV-E program, she made up her mind
to pursue a degree in social work. But, she says, "the only
way I was able to go to school to get training as a social worker
was through Title IV-E."
After returning to the field with her master's degree, Wilkinson received a promotion as supervisor at the Children’s Division office in Randolph County, her first experience in management. From that position she transferred to a position as supervisor at the Children's Division office in Boone County for a short stay, before moving into the central office, where she has held a variety of positions. The central office job gave Wilkinson the opportunity to write program briefs explaining to legislators the design, cost and impact of Children's Division programs. Currently she manages six program development specialists who guide case workers in implementing guidelines for alternative care, adoption, independent living, intensive in-home services, family reunions and child advocacy centers.
In 2000, Title IV-E Project Director J. Wilson Watt suggested that Wilkinson join the faculty as an adjunct professor. Since then she has taught Organizational Issues in Child Welfare to MU’s social work students.
"Cindy contributes substantially to child welfare in a very special way," Wilson Watt said. "First, she has given back to the Title IV-E program and the School of Social Work by teaching a specialized course in child welfare, which completes a circle of expanding knowledge by bringing both the new challenges in child welfare and new knowledge about those challenges to current social work students."
Watt also says that Wilkinson has brought new knowledge, new ideas for practice and a new perspective on policy development to the Children's Division.
"Because she returned to the Children's
Division as a service worker, then became a supervisor, and then
went into program development and management, Cindy has been able
to bring these new ideas and perspectives to larger areas of work
with children throughout the division," Watt says. "In
this way, Cindy, as well as the other Title IV-E students, increasingly
influences the entire process of helping the children of Missouri
who are clients of the Children’s Division."
Cindy says she is excited by the challenge
of adapting new research, programs and practices to help families.
She says that earning her master's in social work at Mizzou was
a great decision and says her commitment to the profession and
the Children's Division will be "for as long as they will
have me."
Note: This story was published originally
in the spring 2005 issue of Social Work Notes, a news magazine
for alumni and friends of the School of Social Work.
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November 15, 2007
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