Child welfare informatics: A proposed subspecialty for social work

Informatics is a term that has been used and applied to data collection, analysis, and information and communication technologies across many disciplines including public health, nursing, medicine, and, more recently, to social work. To date, no collective discussion involving policy makers, practitioners, and researchers in the social work field defining child welfare informatics and its implications to the discipline, including curriculum development has occurred. This paper offers a perspective to begin the dialogue of child welfare informatics and presents a working definition and role specification for those working as child welfare informaticians. Finally, recommendations are made on how to evolve child welfare informatics. These recommendations include highlighting the importance of informatics as a subspecialty in social work, its prospectus for child welfare policyreform, and implications for interdisciplinary, social work curriculum development.