Workforce Development for Evidence-Based Practices in Connecticut

Wheeler is not only a leader in providing evidence-based services, but has leveraged that expertise to develop a graduate course and faculty fellowship to promote the training of graduate students of social work, marriage and family therapy, counseling and psychology for evidence-based practice.

Dr. Elisabeth Cannata, Vice President of Community-Based Family Services and Practice Innovation, developed a graduate-level course designed to expose students to the array of empirically supported in-home family treatment models that have been so widely disseminated across Connecticut and to the core clinical competencies shared by these models.

University professors are trained by Dr. Cannata through a faculty fellowship, and receive a comprehensive instructors’ toolkit and ongoing consultative support to teach the class in their respective graduate training programs. To date, she has trained 32 faculty from 14 graduate programs in Connecticut, Massachusetts and New York.

Since 2009, when the course was first implemented, more than 600 students have received certificates of completion for the course, signaling to providers that they are uniquely prepared to enter the workforce for one of the more 450 clinical positions statewide within one of the empirically supported in-home family treatment programs.

Learn more about how this Department of Children and Families-supported initiative provides a model for collaboration between providers and higher education to prepare students for clinical practice opportunities.