Supervisor Core - Winter/Spring 2026 Cohort

Build your leadership skills and gain confidence in your ability to support your team at the micro, mezzo and macro levels throughout this comprehensive program tailored specifically for child welfare supervisors. Throughout the 11 days of training, we will help you gain more knowledge about yourself, your leadership style and your practice as a whole.

Supervisor Core will engage you through the use of videos, scenarios, small and large group activities, journaling and action plans, providing a rich environment for collaboration, discussion and individual reflection. Each day will layer and integrate knowledge to show the parallels to your agency practice and to cross-thread the ideas in the classroom.

This program consists of multiple topics spread across 11 days that are grouped into five modules.

Cohort Course Schedule

This will be a fully virtual cohort. Modules 1-5 will be held through Zoom. All trainings are full-day trainings from 9:00am to 4:00pm except for Ongoing Development as a Leader, which will be from 9am-12:15pm.

MODULE 1

• Day 1 & 2: Leading in Child Welfare – The Role of the Supervisor Feb. 4-5, 2026

MODULE 2

• Day 3 & 4: Creating an Organizational Learning Environment Mar. 4-5, 2026

MODULE 3

• Day 5: Data-Informed Supervision Apr. 7, 2026
• Day 6: Supervising for Accountability Apr 8, 2026

MODULE 4

• Day 7 & 8: Case Consultation & Critical Thinking: Teaming for Success May 12-13, 2026
• Safety Organized Practice for Supervisors May 19, 2026

MODULE 5

• Day 9: Supporting Individual and Team Development Jun 17, 2026
• Day 10: Ongoing Development as a Leader Jun 18, 2026

COURSE MAKE-UP REQUESTS

In order to be enrolled in select courses within this cohort for make-up, please email your request to Academy@ucdavis.edu

Instructors

Betsy Watson

• Betsy Watson has worked in the field of child welfare since 2001. She began her career as a social worker and then transitioned to Emergency Response social work at the County of Ventura, where she currently serves as an after-hours supervisor. She also serves as a backup facilitator for the county’s CFTM program. Watson has worked as a child welfare trainer since 2019 with subject matter expertise in CFTM, structured decision making, trauma-informed practice, Common Core, fairness and equity, cultural humility in child welfare interviews, critical thinking and assessment, and other training topics.

Marian Kubiak

• Marian Kubiak, M.S.W., brings over 30 years of experience in working with children and families. Her experience includes working in various programs and leadership capacities in a social services setting, including the Department of Children, Family and Adult Services. She also has experience collaborating and partnering with community agencies and stakeholders. Currently, Kubiak is employed as a Title IV-E liaison/lecturer in the Social Work Department at California State University-Sacramento where she teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses and works with MSW students in the Title IV-E program

Catherine Chase

• Catherine Chase has more than 30 years of experience working with children and families. She retired as director of child welfare in Napa County and has been training and coaching child welfare professionals since 2016 in topics including Safety Organized Practice, Core for Social Workers, Concurrent Planning Documentation, CANS Assessment, Structured Decision Making and Child and Family Teaming, as well as leadership training for supervisors and managers. Previously, Chase served in a management role for San Diego Child Welfare Services as a policy analyst, where she was instrumental in the development of the Continuous Quality Improvement Program for San Diego County.

Dorothy Byron-Arrington

• Dorothy Byron-Arrington has 20 years of experience in child welfare services. She has worked with the Indian Child Welfare Unit, Resource Family Approval, and as a Team Decision Making Facilitator. Byron-Arrington assisted with countywide implementation of Child and Family Teaming in her county, and she helped develop training for the Katie A. Settlement. She is currently an administrator for a CWS county and a trainer for Quality Caseworker Visits.

Laura Shotzbarger

• Laura Shotzbarger has recently retired as a regional manager from the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services. With over 28 years of experience working in child welfare, she is passionate about supporting those staff working directly with children and families. As a regional manager, she advocated for advanced training in the areas of domestic violence as well as maternal mental health and its impact on the family. She embraces multidisciplinary teaming and quality supervision to make the best decisions possible for families. Shotzbarger is a champion for coaching and mentorship at all levels of the organization to foster an environment of transparency, respect and integrity.

Kate Bedwell

• Kate Bedwell is a social worker, trainer, and a certified Gallup Strengths Coach with more than 20 years of practice and leadership success. Her professional career has spanned the realms of public child welfare, juvenile justice, family self-sufficiency and workforce development. As a supervising practice coach within public child welfare for more than seven years, she developed mastery of coaching, training, and simulation facilitation to support implementation of best practices across all levels of the workforce in public child welfare. She specializes in facilitating safe, challenging, dynamic and interactive learning processes which vitalize, inspire, and motivate teams and individuals. Deeply inspired by her work training and coaching within child welfare, Bedwell strongly believes training and coaching of the child welfare workforce is fundamental to the implementation of evidenced based child welfare practice.

Rebekah Rogers

• Rebekah Rogers, M.A., served as a social worker for Tuolumne County’s Adult, Child and Family Services for 12 years, including five years as the supervisor of the Emergency Response unit. She has also served as the Foster and Kinship Care Education program specialist for several counties, where she wrote curriculum and delivered training workshops for Resource Family Approval caregivers. Rogers has been teaching for UC Davis Human Services Northern Academy since 2015.