The County Welfare Directors Association (CWDA), Service Employees Union International (SEIU)-CA and the National Association of Social Workers, California Chapter appreciate the Governor’s budget proposal to invest $5.9 million General Fund (GF) into the Child Welfare Services (CWS) Training System to address critical underfunding in this program that prepares social workers in serving our state’s most vulnerable population of children and youth. While this proposal is a good start, it falls short of meeting the current needs of child welfare staff and our partner agencies to support their incredibly difficult and complex work and ultimately, to improve outcomes for the children, youth and families served in the child welfare program. For this reason, our Coalition requests an augmentation of $7 million GF to modernize the training system.