AW Application for Spring 2008 – First Time Applicants
AW Application for Spring 2008 – For students that received an AW award in 2007
Tuition Payment Form
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Who Was Amy Watkins:

Amy Watkins (1973-1999) was a social worker from Topeka, Kansas, who was murdered while walking down the street on March 8, 1999, in Brooklyn, New York. Her death sparked widespread dismay in New York City, and days later 300 marchers expressed their grief with a candlelight march on her Prospect Heights street. Watkins graduated from the University of Kansas in 1996, and was a student at the Hunter College School of Social Work at the time of her death. Both institutions established scholarships in her name. Watkins, who was 26, had been working at the New Settlement Houses in the Bronx as a counselor to battered women in addition to attending school.  She was also an artist who believed art could be used to foster human relationships and combat social ills.

The Amy Watkins Scholarship Fund

In conjunction with the New York State Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) and The Consortium of Social Work Education, COFCCA is pleased to announce the Amy Watkins Scholarship Fund.

Funding is available to workers of voluntary provider child welfare agencies in New York State that contract with one of the 19 counties eligible by law, as listed below. The Amy Watkins Scholarship Fund encourages and supports workers committed to working professionally in the field of child welfare to attain their BSW and/or MSW degrees at accredited institutions of higher learning, through grants for tuition assistance.  The goal is to help improve the quality of services delivered to some of the most vulnerable children and families in New York State through an increasingly professionalized workforce that can earn a social work degree while remaining employed in child welfare.  The retention of graduate-workers along with increased advancement opportunities into supervisory and management roles are related objectives. The participation of bi-lingual speaking and underrepresented worker populations is encouraged.

The Spring 2007 Semester funding is now closed. 
The Fall 2007 application will be posted in June at the bottom of this page.

Eligibility information:

• Any currently matriculated student in an approved/accredited MSW degree program or Junior or Senior enrolled in a BSW program
• Students must have a minimum of one year employment with a child welfare agency
• Applicants must be in good standing both at their agency (i.e., not on probation or other progressive disciplinary track, etc.) and in their educational program
• Bilingual Speaking Persons and Other Under-represented Populations,  Are Encouraged to Apply

The 19 Counties: Albany, Broome, Chautauqua, Dutchess, Erie, Monroe, Nassau, NYC, Niagara, Oneida, Onondaga, Orange, Rensselaer, Rockland, Saratoga, Schenectady, Suffolk, Ulster, Westchester,