GROW Center - Greater Resilience of the Workforce
Preparing and supporting Florida’s child welfare workforce from classroom to casework to competent leadership.
Greater Resilience of the Workforce
Florida's child welfare system has experienced challenges with stabilizing and sustaining its professional workforce. The GROW Center will be the heart of the Institute's professional advancement offerings and will facilitate all management and administrative tasks, curriculum development, and coordination of activities.
The Institute's GROW Center will address many of the components of Senate Bill 1326 and create a dynamic through-line from classroom to casework to retain workers who grow, competently, into leaders at all levels of the workforce.
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From Classroom to Casework to Competent Leadership
The GROW Center is the umbrella under which all the Institute's professional advancement offerings will be created, and all management and administrative tasks, curriculum development, and coordination of activities will be conducted.
The three programs housed within the GROW Center that address components mandated by statute include:
The Florida Study of
Professionals for Safe Families
The Florida Study of Professionals for Safe Families (FSPSF), a longitudinal study of Florida's child welfare workforce (2015-2020), found that 81 percent of newly hired frontline workers left their original agency within three-and-a-half years, with the majority leaving within the first 18 months.
Transforming child welfare in Florida into a system that prioritizes thriving children and families requires a thriving workforce. The current and significant workforce turnover rates, as found by the FSPSF, make meaningful change to the system and to child and family outcomes, unlikely.
The FSPSF findings serve as a cornerstone of the developing GROW Center.
left their original agency within three-and-a-half years


GROW Center Advisory Committee
GROW Center Advisory Committee members will provide guidance and feedback to the GROW Center on programmatic efforts, link the GROW Center staff and programs with child welfare professionals and organizations, and advocate for the GROW Center's innovative approaches to transforming the child welfare system in Florida.
View the Advisory Committee