Interdisciplinary Recommendations Concerning a High Turnover Rate in Child Welfare

Overview: This workshop will describe child welfare caseworkers' challenges and explain “worker migration” from public agencies to private agencies and adverse judicial experiences. Presenters will show an analysis of caseworker turnover trends and then introduce a turnover study, which further informs recruitment and retention strategies.Proposal text: Background and

Purpose: Child welfare is one of the most complex and emotionally draining fields in social services (Depanfilis & Salus, 2003). Many counties in Pennsylvania faced a sharp increase in referrals (Assad, 2017) with Pennsylvania Child Protection Services Laws changes. In this workshop, a former executive director of a public child welfare agency (Presenter 1) will explain the phenomenon of staff migration and the high turnover rate in Pennsylvania. Existing studies have focused on linking turnover rate with organizational climates (e.g., types of organizations, workloads) and motivation to work (Fernandes, 2016; Park & Pierce, 2020), and little is known about how caseworkers' authentic behavior and court work may impact their intent to leave. This study aims to investigate the impact of the type of agency, job satisfaction, and authentic behaviors on the intent to leave among caseworkers.

Methods: Presenter 2 will explain a sample in child welfare agencies in a mid-Atlantic state (Nf688). Variables were included caseworker characteristics (age, gender, and race/ethnicity), organization type (e.g., private and public), and authentic behavior (balance processing, relational transparency, and internalized moral perspective) (Leroy et al., 2012). The Intent to Leave Child Welfare Scale (ILCW) was used and three dimensions were derived from the results of confirmatory factor analysis: thinking (e.g., how often thought about leaving), looking (e.g., looked in paper), and acting (e.g., sent out resumes) on leaving (Claiborne et al., 2015).

Results: Presenter 3 will discuss the findings from path analysis, which examined the impact of authentic behavior and work environment on the intent to leave. There was a partial mediation effect of relation transparency. While caseworkers were likely to act on leaving regardless of being satisfied with current job (StdYX=6.36; 95% CI [3.83, 8.89], p < .05), higher relational transparency reduced acting on leaving (StdYX = -1.90; 95% CI [-3.64, -.16], p < .05). Having positive relationships with court staff reduced acting on leaving (StdYX= -3.13; 95% CI [-5.09, -1.18], p < .05) and fairness of workload reduced in acting on leaving (StdYX= -3.73; 95% CI [-4.87, -2.58], p < .05).

Conclusions and Implications: The results showed that caseworkers' authentic behavior plays a protective factor from leaving their agency. This highlights the importance of the element of "maintaining true to one's self." Caseworkers want to be heard, if not have meaningful input in their work environment, thereby organizations need to provide avenues for staff to guide and shape practice considerations. Further, a positive relationship with the court was a stronger predictor of caseworkers' intention to leave their jobs than salary and benefit. The study implies that not all caseworkers leave welfare agencies for the same reason, nor are financial rewards or high workload the main predictor of wanting to leave. Creating an environment where caseworkers present their true selves (i.e., relational transparency) and have a positive relationship with courts staff is recommended to retain key professionals in child welfare. Presenter 4 will provide actionable, interdisciplinary recommendations concerning high turnover rates among caseworkers in child welfare agencies.