This study used a mix-method research design to investigate the high turnover rates and low child welfare retention rates. Specifically, the study sought to determine if relationships exist between job satisfaction, supportive supervision, and turnover intention. Data revealed a strong, negative statistical relationship between job satisfaction and turnover intention. When CPS child welfare workers are satisfied with their jobs, they stay with the organization. There is no doubt that the child welfare industry has high-risk challenges. High turnover and low retention rates go beyond a national problem, and it is suggested that decision-makers consider making changes to maintain a robust workforce.
This book examines a key issue in the field of human and social services: how to retain workers in child protection and welfare organisations. Research over the last decade has highlighted the turnover of these workers as being a pressing and perennial issue that impacts upon service users, staff welfare, resources and the reputation of this sector. This book presents the findings of a study examining social workers' retention in child protection and welfare. The findings from this study highlights how workers' retention is influenced by exchanges relationships with colleagues and managers, and this book presents a unique 'career preference' typology which expands our understanding of how workers make decisions to stay or leave based upon their pre-conceptions of career pathways post-qualification. The book also examines findings associated with the employment mobility of these workers within child protection and tracks their next post after leaving, which provides some surprising findings regarding how we understand and measure turnover for these workers. The book also examines rich qualitative data from these workers' experiences of being a social worker in child protection associated with; job satisfaction, commitment to child protection and welfare work, making a difference, quality of supervision, autonomy, and exchange relationships with peers, all of which emerged as important factors in social workers' decisions to stay or leave. The implications of this study's findings for theory are also explored. Kenneth Burns is deputy course director of the Master of Social Work and a research associate with the Institute for Social Science in the 21st Century at University College Cork, Ireland.
There are many studies that focus on the struggles of working for child protective services. Retention rates for social workers are low and turnover rates are high (Kammerman and Kahn, 1989). However, there is a lack of studies showing reasons experienced social workers give for their longevity within the field. This study looks at this area by using in depth qualitative interviews of social workers who have worked in Sacramento County CPS for five years or more. The purpose of this study was to determine what factors experienced social workers give for their longevity within CPS. In-depth interviews were conducted with social workers in Sacramento County CPS (n=8) to determine what factors they perceive to have contributed to their longevity. This study found: that social workers identify supervisors as playing an important role on their career both positivity and negatively; CPS offers better pay and more job opportunities; believe that social work is a calling; understand the importance of self-care; have experienced burnout but have fought through it; measure their success by the success of their clients; and their workload is too high. These findings can affect future hiring policies and employee retention programs within CPS.
Developing an Empirically Based Practice Initiative documents practice techniques that were used during a three-year training/demonstration project for child welfare supervisors working in the frontlines of child protection services in the Southeastern United States. This unique book is a guide to combining research methodology with staff training to enhance the quality of evidence-based practice in the field. The book examines techniques that were used in training modules in four states, highlighting practice models and intervention outcomes from an evidence-based perspective. Developing an Empirically Based Practice Initiative includes details about the project from the federal perspective (The Children’s Bureau) and the operational implications at the Southern Regional Quality Improvement Center (SRQIC) level. The book examines the issues of providing technical research assistance to child welfare agencies and the complexities of cross-site evaluation with different political jurisdictions. Developing an Empirically Based Practice Initiative examines: The Children’s Bureau discretionary grant program the relationship between child welfare workers’ career plans and their abilities to accomplish core work tasks secondary traumatic stress (STS) in child protective services workers methods for monitoring and evaluating child welfare supervisors clinical decision-making as a tool for building effective supervision skills the use of outcome data for decision-making the development and implementation of the Tennessee project the use of “360-degree” evaluations to improve clinical skill development the Intervention Design and Development model Developing an Empirically Based Practice Initiative is an invaluable aid for social work practitioners, child welfare workers, case managers, and supervisors, and for social work academics and students.
High rates of employee turnover are interfering with the well-being of the individuals relying on these services to address their needs. It appears a cultural shift within the profession may be attributing to issue. Additional research is needed to understand the factors contributing to the high rates of turnover, and to explore strategies to ensure a systemic response to the issues of child abuse and mental health.
This book is a valuable, comprehensive and unique reference text on Psychosocial Safety Climate (PSC), a new work stress theory. It proposes a new PSC theory concerning the corporate climate for workers’ psychological health, its origins and implications for work stress, and provides a critique of current research and theories. It provides a comprehensive review of all PSC studies to date. The chapters discuss state-of-the-art empirical evidence testing PSC theory in relation to management roles, organisational resilience, corruption, organisational status, cultural perspectives, illegitimate tasks, high PSC work groups, PSC variability in work groups, etc. They investigate outcomes such as psychological distress, emotional exhaustion, depression, worry, engagement, health, cognitive decline, personal initiative, boredom, cynicism, sickness absence, and productivity loss, in various workplace settings across many countries. This unique book allows practitioners to rapidly update practical measures, benchmarks and processes, and provides students and trainees with an introduction to PSC and important concepts and methods, quantitative and qualitative, in occupational health with leads to further sources. Students as well as experts on occupational health and safety, human resource management, occupational health psychology, organisational psychology and practitioners, unions and policy makers will find this book highly informative. It covers relevant materials for undergraduate and postgraduate education, drawing upon the concepts, topics and methods (diary, multilevel, longitudinal, qualitative, data linkage) within the multidisciplinary occupational health area.
BSW/MSW education funded by Title IV-E of Social Security Act ("Title IV-E Child Welfare Education") is an important incentive to encourage social workers to stay in the child protection field. It aims to demonstrate the training partnership between universities and public child welfare agencies. This book contains essential research results with a focus on the impact of Title IV-E Child Welfare Education to improve worker capacities and case outcomes, as well as on the process and results of social work education in promoting public child welfare work. There are nine chapters written by renowned researchers in public child welfare who applied rigorous quantitative and/or qualitative methodologies to clearly describe measures used, data sources, outcome variables, and implications for education, practice, policy, and research. These evidence-based articles address the following child welfare topics: training partnerships and worker outcomes, effective pedagogy and online education, workplace climate and retention factors, and other topics connecting BSW/MSW education to public child welfare practice. Future child welfare education will need to further expand child welfare knowledge and skills, strengthen worker competencies with a strong commitment to social work values and ethical practice principles, and develop a cohesive supervisory network to build a workforce with positive attitude toward child protection programs. This collection will inform child welfare educators, administrators and legislators regarding the impact of Title IV-E Child Welfare Education on the development of public child welfare and make recommendations to improve the child welfare curriculum in social work education. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Public Child Welfare.
This book proposes what, to many professionals in the child welfare field, will appear a radically different explanation for our society's decisions to protect children from harm and for the significant drop in substantiated child abuse numbers. At the center of this conceptual and analytic approach is the contention that social outrage emanating from horrific and often sensationalized cases of child maltreatment plays a major role in CPS decision making and in child outcomes. The ebb and flow of outrage, we believe, invokes three levels of response that are consistent with patterns of the number of child maltreatment reports made to public child welfare agencies, the number of cases screened-in by these CPS agencies, the proportions of alleged cases substantiated as instances of real child abuse or neglect, and the numbers of children placed outside their homes. At the community level, outrage produces amplified surveillance and a posture of "zero-tolerance" while child protection workers, in turn, carry out their duties under a fog of "infinite jeopardy." With outrage as a driving force, child protective services organizations are forced into changes that are disjointed and highly episodic; changes which follow a course identified in the natural sciences as abrupt equilibrium changes. Through such manifestations as child safety legislation, institutional reform litigation of state child protective services agencies, massive retooling of the CPS workforce, the rise of community surveillance groups and moral entrepreneurs, and the exploitation of fatality statistics by media and politicians we find evidence of outrage at work and its power to change social attitudes, worker decisions and organizational culture. In this book, Jungian psychology intersects with the punctuated equilibrium theory to provide a compelling explanation for the decisions made by public CPS agencies to protect children.
This comprehensive handbook is a useful tool for practitioners in understanding the casework process. Chapters cover child development, intervention with families and medical evaluation of child abuse and neglect and how to interview in child protective services.
This newly revised and updated edition of a widely adopted text continues to address a broad array of issues in supporting children and strengthening families. It includes key information about federal legislation as well as policy-related outcomes research in child welfare. The first edition of The Child Welfare Challenge was hailed by Social Work as "an excellent source from which to gain an in-depth understanding of the practice and policy dimensions of child maltreatment, foster care, and adoption" and by the Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare as "essential reading for anyone interested in knowing more about child welfare practice in social work." Within a historical and contemporary context, this book examines major policy, practice, and research issues as they jointly shape current child welfare practice and possible future directions. In addition to describing the major challenges facing the child welfare field, the book highlights some of the service innovations that have been developed, as these could be used to help address some of these challenges. In child welfare the focus is on families and children whose primary recourse to services has been through publicly funded agencies. The contributors consider historical areas of service--foster care and adoptions, in-home family-centered services, child-protective services, and residential services--in which social work has a legitimate, long-standing, and important mission. This is a comprehensive book, but one that appreciates the fact that many areas, such as daycare and early intervention, invite exploration. It is unique in that each chapter describes how policy initiatives and research can or should influence program design and implementation.
