Over the summer, I continued my work as a research analyst for the Wisconsin Child Welfare Professional Development System (WCWPDS). WCWPDS is an outreach program of the Sandra Rosenbaum School of Social Work at UW-Madison, which helps to prepare child welfare professionals, like child protective services professionals, for their role. As a research analyst, I worked on projects related to data analysis and reporting, training program evaluation, and financial processes.
My top three takeaways from the internship were:
- Success in leadership is not necessarily about how well you motivate and lead others. I have found that it is more about how well you prepare, plan, and delegate. I learned that creating in-depth plans, developing project timeframes, and assigning responsibilities to others in the group helps to keep the project on track and reduce my stress. In addition, it empowers others to take ownership of their projects.
- Policy development and evaluation are time-intensive processes with lots of drafts and revisions. To make a quality written report for decision-makers, I need to get their feedback throughout the process. This helped me to tailor the report to exactly what they need, so that they can make the most well-informed decision possible.
- Data is often not ready to be analyzed when you receive it. Before each of my projects, I spent time going through the reports that I wanted to use. I found the key details decision-makers needed, removed extra information that was not relevant, and made the data more uniform to improve the accuracy of my results.
The skills I learned from PA873 Introduction to Policy Analysis and PA878 Public Management were helpful in showing me how to approach projects and create written reports that were useful for leadership. This includes using the organization’s visions and goals as a guide, developing quality comparisons to showcase different choices, and making data easy to understand. I mentioned this in my key takeaways as well, but I was really surprised about how much work goes into management prior to even leading the group. Although I thought I had prepared well for the first committee meeting, I quickly realized that having a long-term plan and timelines is key to the success of the project.
I found the practice this internship gave me in developing analysis projects and written reports to be the most valuable part of this role. I now feel more comfortable creating reports, and I also better understand what to include, or to clarify, to best serve the desired audience. In my case, that was WCWPDS leadership and the WCWPDS Evaluation Committee. In hindsight I would have researched more about the concepts of strategic planning and management prior to starting in my role over the summer. It is not only useful in leading groups, but by applying it to my organization, I could have learned more about the organizational management structure and culture. If I had applied these concepts more at the beginning of my experience, I would have been better prepared to step into a leadership role with WCWPDS.
This experience was a great opportunity to practice some of the skills I learned in the program. The internship experience is my full-time job for WCWPDS, so I am not sure how applicable it is as an internship recommendation. However, I would highly recommend working with WCWPDS if you get the chance. It is a great example of a supportive organizational culture. Every day I feel like I am challenged, and my work is appreciated by our staff and management.
I have already started my career, but it helped me to explore the details of the role of a policy analyst or program evaluator. I really enjoyed getting to work on analysis projects related to program evaluation. I had freedom in deciding how I approach the data, and I liked solving the puzzle of an analysis project. I also learned about some of my own areas for improvement that I can work to develop in my future courses.
Shortened Response for the Canvas Assignment
Over the summer, I continued my role as a research analyst for the Wisconsin Child Welfare Professional Development System (WCWPDS). WCWPDS is a part of the Sandra Rosenbaum School of Social Work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
I worked on several projects at WCWPDS directly related to my coursework at the La Follette School of Public Affairs. One of my key projects was analyzing data and creating a written report for the WCWPDS Evaluation Committee. I investigated the rates at which new child welfare professionals completed their self-paced work prior to their instructor-led discussions in our training program, WiLearn. In addition to reporting overall results, I analyzed demographic differences based on the learner’s social work background and employer.
I found my work with WCWPDS to be useful in applying the skills and knowledge from the PA873 Introduction to Policy Analysis and PA878 Public Management courses. In these courses, I learned about the process of policy analysis and program evaluation. At WCWPDS, I applied this knowledge to real-world data and problems.
A key lesson I learned from this role is the importance of feedback and revisions to creating reports that are useful and accessible to my target audience. I hope to apply and build on this knowledge in upcoming courses like PA871 Public Program Evaluation and PA881 Cost-Benefit Analysis.
