UND Social Work to celebrate 30-year anniversary of Children & Family Services Training Center on Friday, March 14

David L. Dodds

Document Type

News Article

Publication Date

3-10-2014

Campus Unit

College of Nursing & Professional Disciplines

Abstract

The University of North Dakota's Social Work Department will host the 30th anniversary celebration of the Children and Family Services Training Center (CFSTC) at 11 a.m.-1 p.m., on Friday, March 14, at Gorecki Alumni Center on campus.

The celebration recognizes one of the country's oldest and most enduring partnerships between a university-based social work department and child welfare professionals.

CFSTC was launched in the early 1980s when Donald Schmid, at the time, the deputy director for the state's Children and Family Services Division, was seeking a way to create a consistent and sustainable organization that met the training needs of the state's child welfare workers.

Schmid contacted Dr. Kenneth Dawes, then chair of the UND Social Work Department, and the CFSTC was subsequently established in March of 1984 and housed at UND, with funding provided through a state contract.

Roger Johnson, currently an assistant professor in the UND Social Work Department, was hired as the first director for the CFSTC. Schmid went on to become the director of the Children and Family Services Division, and Dawes is a professor emeritus of UND's Social Work Department.

Since its inception, the CFSTC has maintained its fundamental mission, but also has expanded its reach and its training programs. The Training Center now serves more than 2,000 social workers, foster and adoptive parents and other child welfare partners in a variety of professional development programs annually.

"It is rewarding to see it still operating," Schmid said, reflecting over CFSTC's 30-year history. "It remains a national model that is vibrant and changing. Professionally, it is one of the things I am really proud that I helped create."

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