Contact Persons:
Dr. Catherine Born
Phone: (410) 706-5134
Ms. Pamela Love
Phone: (410) 706-3372
Location:
550 W. Baltimore Street, 5th Floor (Hilda Katz Blaustein Center) For two decades this Group, under the leadership of Dr. Catherine Born, has partnered with the Maryland Department of Human Resources in research, training and technical assistance activities in the areas of welfare and welfare reform, child support enforcement and, more generally, the economic well-being of low income children and their families. The Group is well-known for its pioneering and highly sophisticated use of administrative data for research purposes, for exemplifying how empirical research can be used to shape public policies and programs and for being a model of effective, sustained university-agency collaboration. The research division is the Group’s largest and, at any given point in time, has a dozen or more projects, often longitudinal, underway on topics ranging from debt-leveraging for low-income child support obligors to the use and effects of time limits, full family sanctions and diversion techniques in welfare reform and the characteristics of today’s welfare caseloads. The Group also maintains a database of the more than 150,000 voluntary, in-hospital paternity acknowledgments that have been filed in Maryland since 1994 and provides research, technical assistance, and quality assurance services to the state related to that program. Additionally, programmers and researchers ensure a quick turnaround service for ad hoc research reports needed by front-line agency administrators. The Group’s signature research project, Life After Welfare, is the nation’s first and largest study of welfare leavers. It has been ongoing since 1996 and, today, is tracking more than 10,000 families who have left welfare since the outset of reform. The mission of the research team is to conduct quality research on current social policy issues, to make results available in ‘real time’ to elected and appointed officials, to link social science research findings to legislative and agency-based policy formation and decision-making, and to evaluate program outcomes at the individual, family, jurisdictional, and state levels. The Group’s training division, the Policy & Skills Training Team (PSTT) designs, develops, facilitates and evaluates a variety of interactive training events for front-line, supervisory, and managerial staff who work in Maryland’s welfare and child support enforcement programs in the 24 subdivisions of the state or at the central offices. Training topics have been many and diverse, and include such things as Customer Service, Stress Reduction, Time Management and new policies and procedures. Training is provided upon request, regionally or on-site at local offices and may be customized as needed. Trainers also are active participants in various agency-led workgroups and provide technical and collegial assistance to Maryland hospitals and technical as sistance to the state child support agency concerning the in-hospital paternity acknowledgment program. Independent research projects and internships for qualified, interested MSW and PhD students are often available, as are summer and school-year employment opportunities. For additional information, please contact Ms. Pamela Love at 410-706-3372 or visit the Group’s website at www.familywelfare.umaryland.edu. top last modified on
July 11, 2005
Matt Conn
Director, Office of Communications |
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