International Efforts

Curriculum Development and Community Building in Romania

From 2000–2002, the Resource Program, as part of the Jordan Institute for Families, part of the School of Social Work at UNC-Chapel Hill, engaged in an international effort to support the child welfare system in Romania. They did this by developing three in-service training courses and by holding a community dialogue at a Romanian national conference.

Curriculum Development
In October 2000, through a partnership with World Vision International and CRIPS (Centrul De Resurse Si Informare Pentru Profesiuni Sociale) and funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, faculty from the Resource Program traveled to Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, and other parts of Romania to gather information and build relationships with their Romanian counterparts. After this visit, Resource Program faculty returned to North Carolina and, working in collaboration with their Romanian partners, developed two multi-day, competency-based courses: A Foundation Curriculum for Romanian Child Welfare Supervisors, and A Curriculum for Case Management in Child Welfare in Romania.

In fall 2001, curriculum developers returned to Romania to conduct "train the trainer" events for these courses. During these events, potential trainers and participants told them what they would like to see a more advanced curriculum for child welfare supervisors. Thus, the Resource Program and its partners developed another multi-day course, A Curriculum for Experienced Romania Child Welfare Supervisors, which was delivered to Romanian child welfare workers in spring 2002.

Community Building
The Resource Program also engaged in community building efforts in Romania. In fall 2001, Gary Nelson, director of the Resource Program, and Nancy Dickinson, director of the Jordan Institute, traveled to Cluj-Napoca, Romania. There they met with community leaders and presented a model for conducting community dialogues focused on child welfare. Community leaders responded very positively to this model, which is based on ideas introduced in Dr. Nelson's book, Self-Governance in Communities and Families (Berrett-Koehler, 2000), and informed by his experience conducting dialogues in communities across the United States.

As a result, Dr. Nelson and others from the Jordan Institute traveled to Romania in spring 2002 to conduct a full-scale dialogue at a conference sponsored by World Vision Romania.

For more information about the Jordan Institute for Families' efforts in Romania, please contact Nancy Dickinson, the Institute's Executive Director (Phone: 919/962-6407; e-mail: ndickins@email.unc.edu) or Ms. Lane Cooke (Phone: 919/962-3597; e-mail: lgcooke@email.unc.edu).