Historically, the profession of social work has held a leadership role in the field of child welfare. Since the inception of the social work profession in the late nineteenth century and through the efforts of individuals like Jane Addams of the settlement house movement and Mary Richmond of the charity organization movement, the social work profession recognized the responsibility to address the social problems related to child welfare. Since the early 1900s, there have been tremendous transitions in child welfare and its connection to schools of social work. Zlotnik (1997a) outlines a 60-year history of collaborations between schools of social work and child welfare agencies that led to today's proliferation of partnerships between schools of social work and state child welfare agencies. Most notably, child welfare lost status among the fields of social work practice during the decade of 1980. Although the task of child welfare workers continued to become more complex, many brought limited social work education to their position. As a result of the weakening partnership between schools of social work and child welfare agencies, a special meeting of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) in 1986 was called to address the issues Since then, schools of social work have entered collaborations with public child welfare agencies to improve child welfare standing in the profession. Opportunities provided in a number of significant public policies (Child Welfare Provisions of the Social Security Act, 1935; Public Law 96-272) allow schools of social work to receive Title IV-E funding for professional development of child welfare workers. Today hundreds of these partnerships throughout the country (Zlotnik, 1997b) are spending millions of federal dollars to professionally educate Bachelor of Social Work and Master of Social Work students for careers in child welfare. Unfortunately, there is not a corresponding proliferation of evaluation research that attempts to measure the effectiveness of these partnerships. The need for program evaluation has been emphasized as a need in the literature for some time (Wells, 1994; Zlotnik, 1997b). In addition, the federal government is becoming increasingly interested in outcomes, and some states are implementing reporting systems. This presentation will report on a longitudinal study of over 2,000 child welfare workers in Texas. Child welfare workers are surveyed at four points in time, beginning the day the enter the agency As part of the study, the researchers are notified the day any CPS employee leaves. The study examines the differences and similarities between social workers and non social workers concerning perceptions of job readiness, ongoing use of training, relationship with peers and supervisors, and retention and turnover. Preliminary analysis reveals significant differences among social workers and non social workers regarding the role and use of supervisors, roles of unit workers and peer trainers, perceptions of knowledge and skill acquisition in training, desirability of the job, and assessment and service planning. Implications for social work education, practice, and policy will be discussed in the context of the current study and prior research in the area.