Kim McDowell, MSW

Kim McDowell is currently working as a social services manager in Solano County (between San Francisco and Sacramento). She has worked in the field of social services since 1994, and in Child Welfare since 1997. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from University of California, Riverside. She began in the field working in residential treatment RCL level 13 for teen girls, where she learned a lot about the system from the youth perspective. She then worked for Riverside county as a caseworker for nearly five years, including Family Maintenance, Family Reunification, Voluntary Family Services, and Court Dependency Unit. She completed a certificate in case management at Loma Linda University in the pilot program with their MSW/certificate class, and then moved to New York state and was unable to complete the program. She worked in Monroe county, New York for another 5 years, most of which as an Emergency Response worker. This provided a valuable view of another state’s methods and laws for child welfare. Upon return to California, Kim has worked as an ER worker, become and ER supervisor, Hotline supervisor, Dependency Investigations (court) supervisor, FM/FR supervisor, and the case review/CQI, before promoting to manager over the front end services in Solano.

Ms. McDowell believes that our families and staff have the desire and capacity to change and grow throughout their lives and careers, and that through our relationships with one another we can support that change and growth. She has training experience in the county level in many topic areas, onboarding new staff. She specifically empasizes the importance of consistent oversight and feedback at both the staff and client level.