My name is Kara Painter, and I am a senior in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences double-majoring in Social Work and Spanish. I am entering my final semester of research and will defend my Honors Thesis in the spring. My faculty mentor, Dr. Alishia Ferguson, is the Director of the School of Social Work and has been a tremendous source of guidance throughout the stages of my research. After I graduate in May, I hope to earn my Master’s in Social Work to prepare for a career of providing mental health services to children and families involved with the foster care system.

My research project focuses on the perspectives of Family Service Workers from the Arkansas Department of Children’s and Family Services on the effectiveness of the agency’s policies and practices related to family reunification. This information will be used to form policy recommendations to state and local protective service agencies at the conclusion of my project. To gather this information, I recruited Family Service Workers from several Northwest Arkansas counties to participate in focus groups, which will be conducted via Zoom, a HIPAA-compliant videoconferencing platform. These focus groups were originally intended to take place in-person; however, pandemic-related guidelines led me to change the format of these groups. Thanks to the Honors College Research Grant, I am able to offer all participants a $25 WalMart gift card as a token of my gratitude for their time and insight.

I was inspired to choose this topic while considering research opportunities that would directly relate to my career goals. I hope to work as a mental health practitioner with children and families who are involved in the foster care system, and this topic has allowed me to expand the breadth of my knowledge of protective service agencies’ policies. To help me identify a research mentor, Dr. Kim Stauss, the Chair of the Social Work, met with me to discuss my research goals. She paired me with Dr. Alishia Ferguson, Director of the School of Social Work, who expressed interest in my research topic. Dr. Ferguson has been an integral part of my project, advising me on each step that I should take for my project and connecting me with the individuals from whom I needed to obtain permission for conducting focus groups with Family Service Workers. I am honored to have had the opportunity to learn from Dr. Ferguson’s wealth of knowledge and research experience.

Conducting my research during the COVID-19 pandemic has forced me to become more flexible with my expected timeline and the procedures of my research. However, I am fortunate to be able to gather information while protecting the health and safety of our community. I was initially disappointed when I decided that it would be unwise to conduct focus groups in person; however, I believe that conducting these groups remotely will ultimately allow for greater participation. Ultimately, the circumstances in which I am conducting research have increased my flexibility and ability to change course.

There is currently little existing published research that is focused on examining the viewpoints of child welfare caseworkers on policies related to family reunification. Therefore, the recommendations I will make at the conclusion of my project will fill a gap in existing literature. It is of utmost importance that the practice experiences of caseworkers inform family reunification-related policies, as these individuals have far more direct contact with children and families than anyone else employed by public welfare agencies. This makes their knowledge invaluable to policy formation.

Going forward, I look forward to forming policy recommendations at the conclusion of my research this spring. This project has equipped me with critical knowledge and key research experience that I will apply during my graduate studies and my upcoming career. I am deeply appreciative of the support I have received from Dr. Ferguson, the School of Social Work, and the Honors College for making this learning experience a reality for me.