Advances in Child Maltreatment Prevention Speaker Series - "Reshaping the Child Welfare Workforce to Ensure the Personal Security of Children"

This course will provide an overview of the successes and current challenges in child welfare and workforce needs. It will also provide recommendations to strengthen efficacious prevention strategies and interventions in order to ensure children's personal security and build family and community formal and informal support networks.

Watch the pre-recorded lecture by Professor Bob Lonne prior to April 21. Then join us on April 21 at 12:00 p.m. for a live Q&A session hosted by Professor Todd Herrenkohl.

Reshaping the Child Welfare Workforce to Ensure the Personal Security of Children

The lecture and panel discussion will explore current challenges in child welfare and opportunities to enhance prevention and early intervention services. Speakers will also discuss issues affecting workforce development, retention, and resilience among child protection workers.

Tuesday, April 21, 2020

Bob Lonne, Discipline Leader of Social Work in the School of Health and Professor of Social Work, University of New England, Australia

Professor Bob Lonne is the discipline leader of social work in the School of Health at University of New England in Australia (UNE). Lonne’s distinguished career has included direct practice and managerial positions in the mental health, statutory child protection and juvenile justice fields in both Queensland and Western Australia. He has been an academic at Queensland University of Technology, University of Queensland and UNE and has held senior leadership roles.

Lonne is recognized as an expert witness regarding child protection systems and was cited more than 40 times in Queensland’s Carmody inquiry report into the child protection system. He and his UNE colleagues have undertaken research for the New South Wales “Their Futures Matter” reforms investigating assessment tools and policies for child protection systems to improve access by families and children in need. Along with colleagues from other universities, he has undertaken research about children’s views of safety for the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

He is very active in high-level policy forums and committees concerning areas such as child protection reform and workforce issues affecting the health and community services. Lonne has demonstrated high-level national leadership in a number of areas including:

• Child protection systems

• Workforce issues in the health care and social assistance sector

• Social policy issues

• Accreditation standards for social work educational programs

• Other social welfare issues

Lonne attended the Australian 2020 Summit in relation to the issues affecting rural communities. He was the National President of the Australian Association of Social Workers from 2005-2011, and was formerly the Elections Officer for the International Federation of Social Work.