Using Interactive Multimedia to Build Child Welfare Competencies in Social Workers

Interactive multimedia has been used in a limited fashion in preservice social work education. Building Family Foundations (BFF) consists of 10 competency-based interactive multimedia modules for preparing social workers for child welfare issues they may encounter in their professional practice. This article will review the process used to develop and produce the program and describe research that evaluated the program in terms of social work students’ content knowledge, self-efficacy, and attitudes toward technology. All measures showed significant pre- to posttreatment changes in knowledge of the material in the module, confidence in applying the new skills in social work practica and on the job, and greater comfort and ease using computers and interactive multimedia in an educational setting.