Presented each spring by the Northern Academy at UC Davis Human Services, the Sarah Duncan Champion for Children and Families Award honors Northern California’s outstanding social workers who reflect Duncan’s passion, skill and tireless commitment to improving outcomes for children and families. Now in its fourth year, the award continues to celebrate those making a lasting impact in the field.
California’s child welfare workforce is predominantly comprised of passionate and committed individuals driven by a deep desire to change their communities for the better. Tasked with intervening in complex and distressing cases of abuse and neglect, however, these dedicated workers often experience compassion fatigue, secondary trauma and burnout as a part of their deep connection to the profession.
From March 25–27, 2025, the Northern Academy at UC Davis Human Services welcomed California’s child welfare and probation county teams to 2025l CQI Statewide Conference for Child Welfare and Probation in Sacramento. With 350 attendees from 49 California counties and one Tribe, the annual event enjoyed the highest turnout since it began in 2018.
In celebration of National Social Work Month in March, the Northern Academy invited our colleagues and community partners in the Northern California region to nominate an outstanding social worker for the 2025 Sarah Duncan Champion for Children and Families Award! We are excited to announce this year’s nominees!
As in nearly all fields, digital tools of all stripes are now standard-issue in the world of social work and child welfare. But even as such tools offer tantalizing new efficiencies, they are in many ways a poor fit for the uncertainties and gray areas that make up the challenging reality of child welfare services.
California’s human services workforce is as vast and diverse as it is vital to the health and well-being of the children, adults, families and communities it serves. As national leaders in the transformation of human services through innovation, collaboration and pursuit of best practice, UC Davis Human Services frequently produces practice-specific Toolkits to meet the specialized needs of this valued workforce.
Learn about the new CFT and CANS Resource Hub, get updates from the CFT Statewide Forum and find out about the latest CANS Curriculum upgrades in our Jan. 2025 update article.
Exploring fidelity and evaluation tools for social workers, supervisors, senior leaders and the organization as a whole • Celebrating SOP success in Ventura County • Inviting you to submit SOP tools and/or stories from the field!
Human Services at UC Davis Continuing and Professional Education is pleased to announce Lucy Fuentes and Rose Chahla have accepted positions with its new, fifth program: The California Title IV-E Education Program, which was previously administered by the California Social Work Education Center (CalSWEC). Fuentes will lead the development of this new and growing team as the Title IV-E Northern site director, and Chahla will support the team as a senior project officer.
The California Department of Social Services has announced a strategic partnership with UC Davis Human Services and UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs to administer the California Title IV-E Education Program. This pivotal program provides critical education and support to undergraduate and graduate social work students committed to careers in public child welfare.
The power of SOP has always been that it is grassroots–developed and enhanced by the people who use it in practice. One of the key goals of the SOP Toolkit is to create a collaborative space in which this grassroots movement can continue to grow as practices and circumstances continue to evolve.
Presented each spring by the Northern Academy at UC Davis Human Services, the Sarah Duncan Champion for Children and Families Award honors one of Northern California’s outstanding social workers and seeks to highlight additional child welfare line social workers who reflect Duncan’s passion, skill and tireless commitment to working to improve outcomes for children and families. This is the third year the award has been presented.
In celebration of National Social Work Month, the Northern Academy is proud to announce the nominees for the 2024 Sarah Duncan Champion for Children and Families Award!
178 Northern and 143 Southern California attendees learned from statewide and national experts and participated in the important discussion on how to stop the separation of children from their families and communities, and instead keep them connected to those they love.
