SHEPHERDSTOWN – The Shepherd University Department of Social Work has received a grant from the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources for the 2010-2011 fiscal year in the amount of $133,748.

The co-principle investigators are Shepherd’s Geri Crawley-Woods, Ph.D., professor of social work, and Douglas C. Horner, Ph.D., professor of social work and chair of the Department of Social Work.

With this grant, the program has secured more than $1.8 million in outside funding for the mission and goals of Shepherd and the social work program.

The grant is funded through Title IV-E of the Social Security Act and has three primary functions.

The grant supports social work students who are committed to interning and working within the field of child welfare with tuition assistance during their undergraduate education.

The grant also provides funds for on-going training to West Virginia DHHR staff and supervisors throughout 15 counties of eastern West Virg-inia.

The training includes topics such as ethical practice in child welfare, substance abuse, mental health (child and adult), culturally sensitive practice, issues of separation experienced by children in foster care, engaging absent fathers and kinship care.

The grant provides a series of pre-service workshops for potential foster and adoptive parents throughout the eastern region of West Virginia, which is administrated by Amy Hampton, child welfare trainer and PRIDE coordinator.

The foster parent training is part of a state wide effort to increase the number of potential foster and adoptive parents to meet the needs of the 3,000 children in West Virginia who are in foster care.

Last year Hampton and her staff prepared 174 people to provide positive, nurturing homes to children displaced by child abuse and neglect, according to a press release issued by the university.