BOWLING GREEN, Ky. — Western Kentucky University's College of Health and Human Services, along with the Center for Child Welfare Education and Research, launched their Kentucky Child Welfare Workforce Wellness initiative earlier this month. 

This initiaive consists of doctors and staff members at WKU who will take the lead in researching the overall health and wellness of child welfare workers by using biometric assessment technology.

Research leader Dr. Austin Griffiths is excited about the new initiative.

"The goal of the Kentucky Child Welfare Workforce Initiative is to improve the ability of these professional child welfare workers to respond to job stress because job stress in that position is great," said Griffiths "We are going to use some biometric analytic technology that they are going to wear on their person that will track heart rate variability , stress, quality of sleep."

The initiative consists of six different partners and the study will run through 2022. 

The research will be conducted in three different phases and in addition to the technology,child welfare workers will also give written feedback.