The Florida Institute for Child Welfare has remained steady in its efforts to continue guiding and informing child welfare policy, procedures and research during the upheaval of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although the pandemic has changed the institute’s approach, it has not dampened the team’s dedication to helping the children of Florida.

Two institute affiliates from the FSU College of Social Work, Drs. Dina Wilke and Melissa Radey also received COVID-19 grants that impact their child-welfare related research. Dr. Wilke’s grant will allow her to examine the health, economic and professional impacts of COVID-19 on human service workers through a rapid analysis using a short-response qualitative method. “The Florida Study of Professionals for Safe Families project team had previously been exploring self-care strategies among child welfare workers and this work is also ongoing,” said Dr. Wilke.

Dr. Melissa Radey’s COVID-19 grant will allow her to work with Dr. Joedreka Brown Speights (FSU College of Medicine) to assess the immediate economic, social and health impacts of the coronavirus on vulnerable mothers and their young children. Their research team will conduct qualitative interviews with low-income single mothers in Tallahassee, Florida with plans to conduct follow-up interviews a month later.

Other projects at the institute remain in progress, all of which remain connected through the utilization of digital communication tools. “The pandemic has impacted all of our research projects in some capacity,” said Marianna Tutwiler, program director for the institute. “Timelines for contract negotiations have been hindered as well, as everyone has had to adjust their schedules.” Tutwiler noted that the principle investigators of projects have had to adapt their approaches in order to obtain survey responses and their access to administrative data has been hampered, as partnering community-based agencies have had to shift their focus to modifying their methods of serving clients.

With these new changes guiding the institute’s course, under the leadership of Director Dr. Jessica Pryce, the team has adapted to online tools to continue the momentum of their work. One new resource that was made available on their website is a page (https://ficw.fsu.edu/covid19) providing COVID-19-related tools and materials related to self-care and resilience for parents, providers, and children.

“Although there are some major delays with every agency in Florida, it seems as though things are starting to become more of a routine. The focus of trying to adapt to the new ways of remote work has become normalized and we can all shift our focus fully back to our work,” remarked Bushra Rashid, a recent MSW graduate of the College of Social Work and research assistant at the institute.