Improving Retention Among Public Child Welfare Workers

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Improving Retention AmongPublic Child Welfare WorkersTonya M. Westbrook PhD a , Jackie Ellis PhD b &Alberta J. Ellett PhD ba East Carolina University , USAb School of Social Work, University of Georgia , USAPublished online: 22 Sep 2008.

To cite this article: Tonya M. Westbrook PhD , Jackie Ellis PhD & Alberta J. Ellett PhD(2006) Improving Retention Among Public Child Welfare Workers, Administration inSocial Work, 30:4, 37-62, DOI: 10.1300/J147v30n04_04

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Improving Retention Among Public ChildWelfare Workers:

What Can We Learnfrom the Insights and Experiences

of Committed Survivors?

Tonya M. Westbrook, PhDJackie Ellis, PhD

Alberta J. Ellett, PhD

ABSTRACT. This study expands understanding of personal and orga-nizational factors related to retention among public child welfare work-ers and supervisors from the personal experiences of highly competent,long-term employees, following the original terminology used by Ellett andEllett (1997), we termed the committed survivors. A series of focusgroup interviews was completed with child welfare employees in urban,suburban, and rural settings. The results of the study are described in sixsections: (a) Engagement and Involvement of Participants; (b) Reminis-cence: Organizational; (c) Reminiscence: Societal; (d) Personal Charac-teristics; (e) Core Themes; and (f) Group Differences. Implications ofthe findings for local administrators, supervisors and higher-level ad-

Tonya M. Westbrook is Assistant Professor, East Carolina University. Jackie Ellis,Assistant Professor, and Alberta J. Ellett, Assistant Professor, are affiliated with theSchool of Social Work, University of Georgia.

Address correspondence to: Alberta J. Ellett, PhD, School of Social Work, 423Tucker Hall, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602-7016 (E-mail: [email protected]).

The initial study was supported by funds from the Annie E. Casey Foundation andthe Georgia Department of Human Resources, Division of Family and Children Ser-vices.

Administration in Social Work, Vol. 30(4) 2006Available online at http://asw.haworthpress.com

© 2006 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.doi:10.1300/J147v30n04_04 37

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ministrators to enhance employee retention, and for social work educa-tors are discussed. doi:10.1300/J147v30n04_04 [Article copies available for afee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mailaddress: <[email protected]> Website: <http://www.HaworthPress.com>© 2006 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]

KEYWORDS. Employee/staff retention, child welfare workforce, pro-fessional commitment, child protective services

Frequently referred to as the child welfare workforce crisis, the in-ability of public child welfare agencies to attract and retain qualified,competent staff has impaired the system’s ability to provide services tochildren and families in need. According to the Child Welfare Leagueof America (2004), “no issue has a greater effect on the capacity of thechild welfare system to effectively serve vulnerable children and fami-lies than the shortage of a competent and stable workforce” (p. 1). Na-tional studies indicate annual turnover rates ranging from 20% to 40%(American Public Human Services Association [APHSA], 2001, 2005;U.S. Government Accounting Office [GAO], 2003) and turnover ratesare as high as 100% per year in some county offices (Ellett, Ellett, &Rugutt, 2003). The average national vacancy rate for child welfareworkers was nearly 10% and 6.8% for supervisors in 2004 and requiredseven to thirteen weeks to fill vacant positions (APHSA, 2005). Underthe best of circumstances, working conditions in public child welfareagencies present many challenges (e.g., inadequate compensation, largecaseloads, long hours and on-call responsibilities, voluminous paper-work, frequent policy changes coupled with stringent state and federalpolicy requirements, issues of personal safety, inadequate training andsupervision, involuntary clients facing complex problems, lack of ade-quate resources to serve clients, lack of promotional opportunities, me-dia sensationalization of cases involving child deaths and negativepublic opinion). High rates of employee turnover further exacerbatethese challenges for workers who remain employed (Ellett et al., 2003).

A conceptual model that depicts the complexity of internal and exter-nal factors that define the difficult context in which child welfare staffare expected to function is depicted in Figure 1, a model previously de-veloped by Ellett (2000). The innermost circle represents child welfareemployees and selected individual characteristics (e.g., human caringand self-efficacy). Employees are embedded within the child welfare

38 ADMINISTRATION IN SOCIAL WORK

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organization (middle circle) that includes variables such as the organi-zation’s culture, policy, personnel matters, workload, promotions, andrequired paperwork. Both child welfare employees and the organizationare nested within and must respond to the external environment (out-most circle) that sets requirements and limits on the organizationthrough state and federal law, funding, merit or civil service system,court oversight of cases, clients needs, danger, public opinion, and themedia. The model is not all-inclusive, but it demonstrates that child wel-fare employees must respond to many organizational and externalfactors, all of which constitute a complex, potentially stressful andunpredictable work environment.

Struggling in an environment of depleted resources, public child wel-fare agencies can little afford the direct and indirect costs associatedwith high employee turnover rates. Direct costs of turnover include themonetary expenditures for separation, recruitment, hiring, and trainingof new workers. Graef and Hill (2000) estimated the cost of replacing achild protective service (CPS) worker at $10,000 (in 1995 dollars). Esti-mates of replacement costs in California are even higher, $15,000 to$17,000 (Daly, Dudley, Finnegan, Jones, & Christiansen, 2001).

Overall, the recruitment strategies employed by child welfare agencieshave been only somewhat effective (APHSA, 2001). On average, sevento thirteen weeks are required to fill vacant positions in both public andprivate child welfare agencies (APHSA, 2005). In most states, new hiresmust attend mandatory training prior to assuming responsibilities forcaseloads. During the recruitment/hiring/training process, workers whoare already overburdened with high caseloads must assume responsibilityfor uncovered caseloads, which typically results in personal and organi-zational costs associated with poor work morale and less effective servicedelivery. As clients are shifted from worker to worker, understanding ofclients’ unique situations, rapport and trust deteriorate (APHSA, 2005;Powell & York, 1992), and important case decisions may be delayed asnew workers attempt to sift the details of complex cases (Balfour & Neff,1993). Perhaps the most pervasive cost of turnover to the organization isthe loss of human capital, which deprives the agency of productive capac-ity and the knowledge, skills, and abilities embedded in an experiencedworkforce (McGregor, 1988). Expertise that might be transferredthrough supervision, mentoring, and peer support is also lost to the orga-nization. Ultimately, and sometimes tragically, the quantity, quality, andcontinuity of services to children and families are affected by employeeturnover. Recently, Flower, McDonald, and Sumski (2005) have clearly

Westbrook, Ellis, and Ellett 39

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linked the efficiency of permanency planning outcomes for children tothe stability of child welfare workers assigned to children over time.

Yet despite difficult working conditions, some public child welfareworkers maintain long-term commitments to this difficult area of socialwork practice. Though the past decade has produced a growing body ofliterature regarding factors related to turnover and burnout among publicchild welfare workers, studies focusing on retention have been more lim-ited. Retention of child welfare employees in this study refers to longterm, continuous public child welfare employment, as well as lengthyemployment for some staff with breaks in service. This study addresses asignificant gap in the professional literature by exploring the personal ex-periences of 21 long-term public child welfare workers and supervisorswho have endured the difficulties of work in child welfare and who haveremained committed to employment in child welfare. We termed thesehighly experienced, competent child welfare employees the committedsurvivors.

RETENTION AND TURNOVEROF CHILD WELFARE WORKERS:

EMPIRICAL FINDINGS

Although a number of studies have examined the relationship betweenjob satisfaction and employee turnover in child welfare, results of thesestudies present a somewhat confusing picture. Comparing child welfareworkers, community mental health workers, and family service workers,Jayaratne and Chess (1984) found higher levels of stress, more role andvalue conflicts, and greater intentions to leave their jobs among child wel-fare workers than workers in other contexts. However, all groups re-ported high levels of job satisfaction leading to questions concerning therelationship between job satisfaction and intentions to leave employmentin child welfare. Surveying 300 child protective service workers in 33states, Fryer, Poland, Bross, and Krugman (1988) found that less thanhalf of these workers intended long-term employment in child welfareand 63.7% felt they were sometimes unable to help their clients. A subse-quent study (Fryer, Miyoshi, & Thomas, 1989) of workers who left em-ployment in child welfare compared to those who remained employed,revealed no significant differences on a measure of personal discontent.Thus, many dissatisfied child welfare workers remain in their jobs andjob dissatisfaction does not necessarily lead to employee attrition. Con-versely, Landsman (2001) surveyed 1,133 public child welfare workersin Missouri and found that organizational commitment and job satisfac-


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tion directly influenced workers’ intentions to remain employed in childwelfare.

Two large-scale, statewide surveys of public child welfare workers(Ellett & Ellett, 1997; Ellett et al., 2003) have further examined jobsatisfaction as a correlate of intentions to remain employed in publicchild welfare. Child welfare workers in Louisiana (n = 768) reportedrelatively low levels of general job satisfaction with paperwork,organizational support, and organizational/administrative policies (Ellett &Ellett, 1997). General job satisfaction did not discriminate amongworkers at high risk of leaving and those at low risk of leaving. How-ever, among 1,423 child welfare workers recently surveyed in Georgia(Ellett et al., 2003), three sub-dimensions of job satisfaction (i.e., sal-ary/compensation, levels of paperwork, and organizational support)were significant correlates of intentions to remain employed (r = .41,p < .001). Interestingly, in the Ellett, et al. study, professional commit-ment to child welfare (a dimension of a human caring measure) was byfar the strongest correlate of intent to remain employed in child welfare(r �.67, p < .001). Recently, Ellett and Rugutt (2005) developed a struc-tural equation model that clearly linked elements of human caring (par-ticularly caring about the child welfare profession), professionalorganizational culture, and self-efficacy beliefs to child welfare em-ployees’ intentions to remain employed in child welfare.

Recognizing the stressful working conditions experienced by child wel-fare workers, several studies have examined the role of employee burnoutto employee turnover. Similar to job satisfaction studies, burnout studiespresent mixed findings and conclusions and conceptually, burnout may bea misnomer and proxy attestation for a set of organizational and individualfactors that contribute to turnover among child welfare staff (Crolley-Simic &Ellett, 2003; Ellett & Ellett, 1997; Ellett, 2000). Burnout may be under-stood as a multidimensional construct including three sub-dimensions:(a) emotional exhaustion–feeling emotionally drained by contact with oth-ers; (b) depersonalization–negative feelings and cynical attitudes towardthe recipients of one’s services; and (c) reduced personal accomplish-ment–a tendency to negatively evaluate one’s own work (Maslach & Jack-son, 1981). On the emotional exhaustion and depersonalization sub-scalesof the Maslach Burnout Inventory (Maslach & Jackson, 1981), for exam-ple, the scores of child welfare workers failed to differ significantly fromthe scores of community mental health workers, leading the researchers toconclude that “the perception that child welfare workers are ‘burned-out,’therefore, may be a result of bias in the literature” (Jayaratne & Chess,1984, p. 451). Drake and Yadama (1996) measured burnout in a randomsample of child protective service workers employed by the Missouri Divi-


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sion of Family Services. They identified those that exited during the subse-quent 15 months, and then used structural equation modeling to construct amodel predicting job exit. While emotional exhaustion had a direct effecton job exit, no direct effects of the depersonalization and personal accom-plishment sub-dimensions of burnout on job exit were found. Interestingly,the lack of support for a link between depersonalization and job exit sug-gests that some workers who depersonalized clients, and were perhaps lessmotivated to effectively serve clients, remain employed in the agency.

Anderson (2000) examined the relationship between burnout, copingstrategies, and intent to leave among a purposive sample of 121 directservice workers and 30 supervisors. In contrast to Drake and Yadama’s(1996) findings regarding the relationship between emotional exhaus-tion and intent to leave employment in pubic child welfare, 62% of theparticipants in Anderson’s study reported high levels of emotionalexhaustion and moderate levels of depersonalization, but only 6.6%planned to leave their jobs in the next nine months. The use of engagingcoping strategies (i.e., problem-solving, cognitive-restructuring, socialsupport networks, or expression of emotions) was associated with in-creased levels of personal accomplishment and decreased depersonal-ization. However, these strategies had no effects on levels of emotionalexhaustion, leading Anderson to suggest greater use of social supportand emotion-focused coping for prevention and remediation of burnoutamong workers.

As evidenced by more complex research designs incorporating mul-tiple variables, researchers have come to recognize that retention andturnover are best explained through the interaction of a variety of orga-nizational and personal factors. Among organizational variables, resultsof numerous studies have linked the quality of direct supervision topublic child welfare employee retention (APHSA, 2005; Collins-Camargo &Groeber, 2003; Conway, Shaver, Bennett, & Aldrich, 2003; Ellett,Ellett, Ellis, Westbrook, & Dews, 2004; Ellett & Ellett, 1997; Harrison,1995; Kern, McFadden, Baumann, & Law, 1993; Landsman, 2001; Mc-Carthy, 2003; Rycraft, 1994; Samantrai, 1992). As defined in thesestudies, quality supervision includes a number of personal attributesand skills: for example, understanding the responsibilities and demandof child welfare casework; distributing workload in fair/equitable man-ner; availability; flexibility; possessing good listening skills; conveyingrespect for workers’ point of view; possessing knowledge of both childwelfare practice and the child welfare system; providing both instru-mental and emotional support and praise for a job well-done; clearlyconveying high, but realistic expectations; and providing concrete sug-gestions for improving performance. Other organizational variables


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that have been linked to retention include availability of promotionalopportunities (Conway et al., 2003; Ellett & Ellett, 1997; Landsman; Powell &York, 1992), flexibility to transfer among program areas (Samantrai)and organizational commitment (Harrison, 1995; Landsman). Con-versely, inadequate salaries (Ellett et al., 2003; Powell & York, 1992),and large work/caseloads (Ellett et al., 2003; Kern et al., 1993; Lands-man, 2001; Powell & York, 1992) have been linked to child welfare em-ployee turnover.

Personal factors related to retention include strong self-efficacy beliefs(Ellett, 2000; Ellett & Ellett, 1997; Fryer et al., 1989; McCarthy, 2003), astrong sense of personal accomplishment (Reagh, 1994), skills necessaryto navigate organizational bureaucracy (Kern et al., 1993), length of ser-vice (Balfour & Neff, 1993; Harrison; 1995), and peer support/peer rela-tions (Ellett, 2000; McCarthy, 2003; Rycraft, 1994). Though variouslabels are used (i.e., psychological reward, altruism, mission, obligationto help, human caring, service orientation), results of several studies indi-cate a positive employee relationship between retention and a personalmotivational factor characterized by professional commitment and theconcern for and desire to enhance the welfare of others (Ellett, 2000;Ellett, & Ellett, 1997; Ellett et al., 2003; Ellis, 2005; Harrison, 1995; Kernet al., 1993; Landsman, 2001; Reagh, 1994; Rycraft, 1994).

Finally, several studies of Title IV-E partnerships between child pro-tection agencies and schools of social work have demonstrated thatchild welfare workers with BSW and MSW degrees are more likely toremain employed in child welfare than those with other degrees. A de-gree in social work has also been shown to be positively related to theretention of public child welfare workers (Dickinson & Perry, 2002;Gansle & Ellett, 2002; Jones, 2002; Jones & Okamura, 2000; Robin &Hollister, 2002) and a recent national study identified continuing socialwork education (i.e., obtaining the MSW degree), after the quality of su-pervision, as the second most important factor contributing to child wel-fare employee retention (APHSA, 2005).

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to expand our understanding of per-sonal and organizational factors related to retention among public childwelfare workers by exploring the personal experiences and insights ofcompetent, long-term public child welfare employees, following theterminology used by Ellett and Ellett (1997), we termed the committedsurvivors. We believe the unique perspectives of this group oflong-term public child welfare employees offer many insights for pub-


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lic child welfare administrators and policy makers in their efforts to im-prove child welfare services by strengthening organizational holdingpower and employee retention rates, and for educators who prepare newchild welfare staff.

METHODOLOGY

Questions Framing the Study

This study was one important component of a mixed-methods, state-wide study of factors related to retention and turnover among publicchild welfare workers in Georgia (Ellett et al., 2003) that addressed thefollowing general research questions:

1. How have committed survivors achieved longevity in the difficultpublic child welfare work setting?

2. What organizational and personal factors contribute to long-termemployment of committed survivors in public child welfare?

The general research questions were derived from a conceptual frame-work that guided the Ellett et al. (2003) study previously explicated byEllett (2000) (see Figure 1).

Sample

A criterion-based selection process was used to identify a purposivesample of participants. Directors of selected county Division of Familyand Children Services (DFCS) offices were asked to identify child wel-fare supervisors and workers with a minimum of eight years publicchild welfare experience whom they considered highly competent andcommitted employees. Though all the participants had been employed aminimum of eight years, not all were continuously employed with thedepartment. Some had been intermittently employed, leaving for a pe-riod of time and returning. Due to expected differences among staff andwork environments in urban, suburban, and rural work contexts, poten-tial participants were selected from each of these three contexts. One fo-cus group interview was completed in each of the three work contexts(i.e., one in an urban office, one in a suburban office, and one in a ruraloffice). Although both supervisors and workers providing direct ser-


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vices were included in each of the three focus groups, only the suburbangroup included a supervisor and his/her supervisee.

A total of twenty one child welfare supervisors and direct servicecaseworkers (7 urban, 8 suburban, and 6 rural) employed in multipleprogram areas (i.e., Child Protective Services [CPS] Intake, CPS Ongo-ing, Foster Care and Adoptions, Foster Home/Resource Development)participated in focus group interviews. Participants ranged in age from31 to 60+, all participants were female, and most were Caucasian (n =14). Of the seven remaining participants, six were African-Americanand one reported her identity as Afro-Caribbean. Most participants pos-sessed baccalaureate degrees (n = 14), while three participants heldmaster’s degrees and one had attained a PhD. One participant had onlycompleted high school and two possessed associate degrees. Of the 21participants, only three possessed degrees in social work (2 BSWs and 1MSW). Twelve participants were employed in direct services and ninewere in administrative/supervisory positions. Length of employment inpublic child welfare ranged from 11 to 30 years, with an average of 19.6years. One-third of the participants planned to retire within three years.


External Environment

CW Organization

CW Employees

State Law

Professional Organization Culture

Court

Policy

Clients

Danger

Public

Media

Paperwork

Workload

FederalLaw

EmployeeSelection

Individual Characteristics

Human Caring

Self-Efficacy

Funding

Merit System

Promotions

FIGURE 1. Child Welfare Work Context

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Data Collection Procedures

During the spring and fall of 2003 three semi-structured focus groupinterviews were completed in county level Division of Children andFamily Services (DFCS) offices by two researchers/data collectors. Fo-cus group sizes ranged from six to eight participants. Each focus groupinterview required approximately two hours to complete. The purposeand context of the interviews were explained, participants were assuredof the confidentiality of their responses, and then completed a demo-graphic information form to document characteristics of the sample. Inexplaining the purpose of the interviews, and to enhance efficiency ofthe interviews, clear and strong emphasis was given to the concept ofemployee retention rather than employee burnout or turnover.

The following global questions using open-ended questioning strate-gies as suggested by Patton (1990) guided the interview process: (a) Howhave you managed to stay at DFCS when so many workers are leaving?;(b) What organizational factors have contributed to your longevity as apublic child welfare employee?; and (c) What personal factors havecontributed to your longevity as a pubic child welfare employee? Forclarification and elaboration, participants’ responses to each of theseglobal questions were followed up by probes, additional questions,and/or soliciting specific examples. Each of the two researchers tookcontinuous, written notes of participants’ responses. To enhance the in-volvement of, and contributions from members of each focus group,some informal time was initially allowed for group members to partici-pate in a general discussion about child welfare, their careers, theirmemories, perspectives, and so on.

Data Analysis Procedures

After each focus group interview, the two researchers independentlysummarized written notes relative to the three global questions guidingthe interview process. Of particular interest in these summaries wasidentifying core attestations and assertions, specific examples, descrip-tions of important job-related conditions and events, and job-relatedand/or personal experiences, insights, and dispositions that contributed tothe retention of these committed survivors in public child welfare. Whenthese summaries were completed, the two researchers systematicallycompared their individual findings, identified common, core themes,explicated examples, attestations, and dispositions of group members,resolved explanations and rationales, etc., and then developed a written


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synthesis that best characterized the findings pertinent to the three ques-tions guiding the interviews. This iterative process was first completedfor each focus group interview, and subsequently a grand synthesis ofthe core findings was completed across the three interview groups. Al-though the study was exploratory and not designed to generate theory,the data were analyzed inductively, first by each researcher, and then col-lectively, using the constant comparative method suggested by Glaser andStrauss (1967).

RESULTS

The results of the study are described in six sections that follow:(a) Engagement and Involvement of Participants; (b) Reminiscence:Organizational; (c) Reminiscence: Societal; (d) Personal Character-istics; (e) Core Themes; and (f) Group Differences.

Engagement and Involvement of Participants

During the interviews, these focus group participants were highly en-gaged and involved and openly shared personal and practice experiences.Inclusion of both supervisors and workers in the same focus group inter-views did not appear to suppress any comments or opinions shared. In fact,those in supervisory positions often spoke in the voice of their prior experi-ences as direct service providers as well as in their voices as administratorsand supervisors. They were quite courteous in their interactions and lis-tened to and elaborated upon the experiences and examples of their col-leagues. These participants agreed that reasons for leaving public childwelfare were often discussed among child welfare staff. However, far lessdiscussion and attention was typically given to discussions about remain-ing employed in public child welfare. The tone of communications amongmembers of this group of committed child welfare employees was consid-erably different from the nature of communications among members of fo-cus groups conducted earlier by the same researchers as part of the largerstudy (Ellett et al., 2003).1 These committed survivors were more calm, lessemotionally charged, and more reflective and considered in making theircomments and contributions to the focus group discussion than child wel-fare staff interviewed in the larger Ellett et al. study. The single interviewfocus on employee retention, rather than turnover, probably facilitated thequality of these communications.


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Reminiscence: Organizational

Although not directly related to the longevity of employment, partici-pants in all three focus groups began by reminiscing about “how thingsused to be,” and the changes they had observed in the organizations inwhich they worked and in society in general since they began workingin public child welfare. This portion of the interviews allowed partici-pants to establish a level of comfort with each other and the interviewersand identified alterable and unalterable variables related to retention ofchild welfare employees. These individuals seemed to long for a returnto earlier times, suggesting that perhaps longevity was more easily ac-complished in the past. Organizationally, they spoke of how “the (childwelfare) system has changed.” Examples of changes in the child wel-fare system they described include the deterioration of the public imageof child welfare and child welfare staff, the relationship between publicchild welfare agencies and the surrounding community, decreasing jobsecurity, and increasing caseload sizes. These committed survivors alsostated that when they began their jobs, the salary and benefits offered bythe state agency were much more competitive with other positions in so-cial work than they are today. Some spoke of employee recruitment asbeing more personalized in the past, with agency directors often “hand-picking persons they wanted to employ” based on personal and profes-sional reputation, as opposed to the current method of hiring employeeswith minimal qualifications listed on a state register. Employees whowere personally recruited for the job felt highly valued. Participantsalso reflected on the past work context in which new employees wereprovided with “intense, hands on mentoring” for up to a full year, ratherthan being immediately assigned a caseload.

They described the current focus and expectations of the state agencyas considerably different from the past, with the current focus on bu-reaucratic issues such as completing a large amount of redundant paper-work within strict timelines, rather than on the needs of, and services tochildren and families. In the past, “workers were allowed room to makemistakes (i.e., workers were not always required to follow every policyand procedure to the letter) but now the agency has different expecta-tions and is more focused on preventing litigation and avoiding blamefor child abuse and neglect cases (including some child deaths) thatmight be published in the mass media.” In the past, policies and proce-dures were less specific which allowed workers more discretion in mak-ing case decisions based upon individual client situations and practicewisdom. These interviewees believed that policies and procedures now


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dictates who should be interviewed and under what circumstances andin what order, what questions should be asked, which goals should beincluded on the family case plan, and sets strict time limits for all theseevents. Thus, any failure to strictly comply with policies and proceduresare considered mistakes and are not tolerated. Participants contrastedthese historical perspectives to the current focus on strict adherence topolicy, bureaucratic procedures, and increasing work scrutiny.

The previously described changes seem to have begun approximatelyfive years before data for this study were collected. As noted by one par-ticipant “about five years ago, everything went ragged.” In these inter-views, participants repeatedly identified a landmark 1998 case in whichpolicy violations appeared to have contributed to a child’s death. Theagency’s response generated rigid policies and procedures, heightenedwork scrutiny and accountability, without providing needed resources toreduce high caseloads, uncompensated after hours work, and improve su-pervision. The perception of these committed survivors was that theagency was quick to blame workers and supervisors in these unpredict-able and unfortunate cases, rather than correcting what they viewed assystem problems.

Reminiscence: Societal

These focus group participants made a variety of comments and shareda variety of perspectives about how the larger society within which childwelfare is embedded had changed through the years (see Figure 1). Thesechanges included many in which today’s vulnerable children and familiesare embedded such as increased use of guns, violence, drugs, communi-cable diseases (e.g., AIDS/HIV), single parent families, and so on. Thegeneral tone of their comments was that these changes made working inchild welfare much more complex and difficult today than in the past. Theyobserved that today’s new child welfare employees are more mobile andmore frequently changed jobs than those in the past. They described to-day’s new workers as “McDonald’s Minded Kids” who believed thateach person should “have it your way,” who frequently change jobs, andwho left a job as soon as they experienced job conflicts, physical or emo-tional stress, or job dissatisfaction. They described child welfare employ-ees of the past as remaining employed in an agency and staying with thejob until “retirement and receiving a gold watch.” Frequent staff turnoveramong new hires was viewed as an organizational problem that was im-bedded in many historical changes in the larger society surrounding the


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child welfare work context (e.g., public criticism, low salaries, lack of re-sources for workers and clients).

These individuals also expressed great concern about the larger soci-ety having become much more litigious over the years. They believedthis situation had added considerable stress to work in child welfare andhad greatly heightened concerns among staff about the legal liabilitiesassociated with work in child welfare. They emphasized that media at-tention and scrutiny of child protection services agencies and employ-ees, and the attendant stress, was much greater today than when theywere initially employed.

Personal Characteristics

When asked about the kinds of personal characteristics that were neededto survive in the difficult child welfare work environment, these committedsurvivors commented on several characteristics they believed to be essen-tial to remain employed in public child welfare. These included: possessionof efficient time management and organizational skills; an open, non-judg-mental attitude; self-confidence; personal commitment (to clients and thelarger profession); compassion combined with firmness; intuition (think-ing on one’s feet); strong self-efficacy beliefs; an ability to be both a teamplayer and to work independently; an ability to “make your needs known”;and the enjoyment of problem solving. An ability to “keep things in properperspective,” particularly separating and balancing the demands of workand one’s personal life, was also viewed as extremely important. They de-scribed various activities that could help keep this delicate balance betweenthe demands of work and one’s personal life such as: leaving work issues atthe office; maintaining an exercise program and hobbies; taking long vaca-tions (two to three weeks); avoiding movies and television programs aboutchild abuse and/or neglect; and refusing to counsel friends and relatives.They also described “personal flexibility in thinking as a must.” As one in-dividual commented, “I enjoy the gray area in which decisions are not clearcut . . . it keeps me going.”

These participants also described a sense of humor as an importantpersonal characteristic that “helped get [them] through the day.” Humorwas viewed as a means of reducing emotional stress, tension, anxiety,and fear; deflecting anger; diminishing the bleakness of a situation; andmaintaining a sense of proportion and perspective. Constantly facedwith tension-provoking situations, participants emphasized the impor-tance of humor as a means of coping with stress. As stated by one partic-ipant, “if we didn’t joke, it (i.e., the work) would be too depressing.”


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Beyond reducing stress, humor seemed to serve as an expression of ca-maraderie. Certain forms of gallows humor were reserved only forpeers, who were capable of a shared understanding and appreciation ofthe humor fellow child welfare workers were able to find in very serioussituations. Although clients might be the subjects of such humor (e.g.,nicknames for clients, such as referring to persons investigated for childmolestation as “Chester the molester”), participants did not feel that cli-ents who were the subject of such jokes were discriminated against inany way in terms of service delivery. According to one participant,workers in her unit teased each other when they saw parallels betweenworkers’ behaviors and difficult client behaviors, such as whining andprocrastination. Humor was also used to cope with the day-to-day, un-usual and difficult situations faced by these committed survivors. Forexample, “you know you are a DFCS worker when you can sit on a[urine saturated] couch and you don’t even smell it anymore.” Similaruses of humor have also been found among professionals who intervenein crisis situations (Maxwell, 2003). In summary, the ability to find hu-mor in the everyday experience of working with needy and sometimesdifficult clients, and to share this humor with peers, helped workerscope with overwhelmingly distressing situations.

Many interview participants, particularly those in investigative posi-tions, were attracted to work in child welfare because of the wide varietyand unpredictability of the challenges of daily work tasks. Metaphori-cally they described themselves as “adrenaline junkies.” All but one par-ticipant spoke of public child welfare as a “mission.” Work in childwelfare was described as personally meaningful and uplifting and impor-tant to the children and families served and to the larger society (e.g.,“This work is a spiritual thing, like a calling”; “It’s a job worth doing”; Ihave a “genuine concern for what I do”; and “If the ones that care walkaway, who will do it?”).

Core Themes

Our analysis of the focus group data identified three core themes thatthese committed survivors emphasized as important to remain em-ployed in child welfare. These themes were an interesting admixture ofpersonal, organizational, and societal concerns.

Movement: The majority of the study participants felt that employee“movement” was essential to employee retention and longevity. Move-ment was described as being achieved in two ways: movement beyondthe boundaries of the agency and movement within the agency. Many of


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these committed child welfare employees were able to take respite orcontingency leave from their jobs. One participant, for example, ex-plained that she “must take time off to recharge.” Some discussed leav-ing DFCS for employment in other settings, and subsequently returningto DFCS, as an important respite strategy to ease the stress associatedwith the intensity, difficulties, and pressures of child welfare work.They also described how they attained variety in their work by movingfrom one program to another (e.g., CPS investigations, CPS ongoing,foster care, adoptions) within the agency. They gave emphasis to theimportance of the goodness of fit between each individual worker andthe individual’s work unit in the organization, and the importance of“finding one’s niche within the agency.” For example, they describedhow “some people simply have an investigative mindset,” therefore ajob in an investigations unit would be the best fit for a person of this type.On the other hand, workers who value case closure would be better suitedto an adoptions unit. Instances of a lack of fit between employees’ per-sonal characteristics and job assignments were clearly identified assources of job stress that required employee movement to enhance em-ployee retention.

Importance of Local Management: These committed survivors spokeat length about the need for professional and personal support from super-visors and local administrators. This support was viewed as an importantbuffer “running interference” between their work in the local agency andthe “constant demands and criticisms from the state (agency).” For exam-ple, workers might be allowed to miss a paperwork deadline in order torespond to a client crisis. Local administrators and supervisors wereviewed as flexible and understanding of the day to day experiences oftheir workers. In contrast, administrators and policymakers at the statelevel were viewed as making bureaucratic, self-serving demands thatwere out of touch with the realities of worker and client needs and the ev-eryday practices of child welfare. Local administrators were portrayed asknowledgeable and experienced leaders who were accessible, helpful,and who gave priority to the needs of both clients and workers. The mostvalued local managers were described as being supportive and caring,trusting and trusted, and interested in the professional development oftheir employees.

One supervisor described her primary role in the agency as that of“supporting my people.” As described by the participants, supportiveand caring supervisors and administrators made it their business to beaware of especially difficult cases, took the time to listen to their work-ers’ “war stories” and took time to pass along their own practice wis-


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dom. Workers perceived supervisory interest in their well-being whensupervisors “checked in emotionally” using a continuum of methodsranging from simply asking “how are you doing?” to helping workersprocess traumatic events, (i.e., discussing the actual events, acknowl-edging feelings, and helping workers keep balanced perspectives aboutwhat they were and were not responsible for in a particular situation).Participants reported feeling cared for when supervisors were con-cerned about their physical safety. For example, when a worker is sentout on a difficult case, a “good supervisor” doesn’t leave the office untilthe worker has returned safe and unharmed. Participants also felt sup-ported when they received “a pat on the back” in acknowledgement ofgood work, were treated as individuals, and when each individual’sjob-related challenges and personal concerns were recognized.

These committed survivors trusted their administrators to resolvestaffing shortages as quickly as possible either through contracting withprivate agencies for temporary services or through filling vacancies. Oneindividual stated when caseloads are very high, “people can scramble forabout a month when they can see the light at the end of the tunnel.” Qual-ity administrators demonstrated trust and supported workers’ decisionsby listening and giving weight to workers’ opinions in making case deci-sions. One participant described her supervisor’s demonstration of trustwhen she was assigned a particularly difficult case. She interpreted thisassignment as an indication of her supervisor’s confidence in her abili-ties. These committed survivors also described interest in workers’ pro-fessional development as important and demonstrated through admin-istrators informing employees about available promotional opportunities.

These interview findings suggest that effective administrators treatcase managers and supervisors as competent employees, and work tostrengthen their self-efficacy beliefs, job-related skills, and practice judg-ments and decisions. In addition, they place more emphasis on peoplerather then policy, giving workers “permission” to work with childrenand families as the number one priority. Both workers and supervisors inour focus groups viewed quality supervision and administration thatmodeled and encouraged teamwork and that helped case managers to de-velop a sense of responsibility for one another, as important factors con-tributing to employee retention. As one supervisor stated, “rallyingaround those (other workers) in crisis is a goal of quality supervision.”The best local administrators were described as being able to “run inter-ference” and serve as a buffer between local staff, state level adminis-trators, and the larger community. Local county office administrators


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were clearly viewed as setting the tone and promoting a positive publicimage for the local office.

Educating Novice Workers: The final core theme to emerge from ouranalyses of the interview data reflected a strong concern for, and need toadequately prepare and mentor novice (new) workers. They describedclose mentoring by supervisors and veteran workers, often in the formof “shadowing,” as the most important part of educating and strengthen-ing the retention of new employees. One participant described how herdesk “remained at the side of my supervisor’s desk my entire first yearon the job.” On-site, on-the-job training was described as making thegreatest contribution to strengthening retention and enhancing the com-petence of new workers. Formal education and required, standardizedtraining provided by the state agency were not perceived as especiallybeneficial. Only one participant believed having a social work degree tobe necessary for effective job performance. One interviewee who heldan MSW stated that “having an MSW does not mean you can do thework.”

Group Differences

Our synthesis and analysis of the focus group interview data also includedconcern for any evident differences between rural, urban, and suburban workcontexts. Our results showed that there were some qualitative differences be-tween these settings. Committed survivors in rural and suburban groups, forexample, placed considerably more emphasis on the importance of leader-ship provided by county office administrators than those in the urban group.Those in the rural group gave considerably less emphasis to movementwithin the agency as an important survival strategy, expressed greater faith intheir administrators as leaders, and placed greater emphasis on teamworkthan did those in the urban and suburban groups. With fewer employmentopportunities in rural areas, participants in the rural work context also de-scribed greater satisfaction with their salaries and benefits than those in sub-urban and urban areas. Participants in the urban group described a need for“bureaucratic skills to filter through the inevitable red tape of the bureau-cracy.”

DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS

The impetus for our study was the national, well-documented, highturnover rate among public child welfare employees and the need to


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learn more about factors related to staff retention from the experiencesand perspectives of respected, long-term child welfare employees. His-torically, the primary research focus on staff turnover in child welfarehas been on reasons why employees leave child welfare. Psychologicaland physical stress causing employee burnout are frequently cited in theliterature as explanations for high employee turnover rates in child wel-fare, even though these variables are not consistently substantiated inthe literature (Crolley-Simic & Ellett, 2003). Many child welfare em-ployees survive the considerable stresses, tensions, and difficulties ofthis important work and remain committed to the larger child welfareprofession and to the children and families they serve throughout theircareers. We wanted to learn from these experienced, competent, childwelfare employees. The findings from our focus group discussions withthree groups of committed survivors depict an interesting admixture oforganizational and societal changes over time, personal characteristicsof child welfare staff, and organizational characteristics framing thework context that are related to staff retention in child welfare.

As a general finding, those we interviewed believed that the contextfor work in public child welfare had changed considerably during theircareers, but not always for the best. Many comments were made aboutchild welfare becoming more influenced by bureaucratic rather than pro-fessional concerns. Bureaucratic changes viewed as interfering with thequality of service delivery in child welfare included: (a) tightened, topdown communications structure; (b) policy and compliance focus; (c) in-creased paperwork/documentation; (d) lack of autonomy in decisionmaking; (e) positions are unclassified and no longer receive Merit Systemprotection; (f) salaries no longer competitive, (g) high caseloads, and(h) uncompensated work.

The findings and insights we developed from our interviews have impli-cations for local administrators and supervisors, higher-level administra-tors, and social work educators, particularly those that are preparing thenext generation of public child welfare staff through Title IV-E programs.These findings are highlighted in the sections that follow.

Implications for Local Administrators and Supervisors

Administrators in local/county offices and those in positions of upperlevel management play significant roles in the professional develop-ment of employees and staff retention. Unfortunately, child welfareworkers providing direct services are typically located at the lowestlevel of a hierarchical organization, often feel devalued, and perceive


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the system as bureaucratic, impersonal, and unresponsive to their needsand efforts. One important role local administrators can play for theirchild welfare employees is that of buffering agents who personally ac-knowledge the efforts and accomplishments of direct service workers,thus strengthening workers self-efficacy beliefs about their abilities toaccomplish difficult work tasks, their general self-esteem, and their im-portance to the organization. The relationship dimension in child wel-fare organizations, making certain workers feel valued by colleagues,supervisors, and administrators, is clearly vital to sustaining employeesin difficult times, developing their commitment to child welfare, andenhancing their longevity as employees.

Our findings support the importance of local office administratorleadership that creates an organizational climate and professional cul-ture that centers on the priority of caring for children and families. A lo-cal administrator can “set the tone” in the office, playing an importantrole in establishing and maintaining the organizational climate of theagency. Local administrators should ensure that each new employee be-gins a career in public child welfare with many positive experiences thatcan strengthen self-efficacy beliefs in capabilities to do this difficultwork (Bandura, 1997). Early mentoring by veteran workers, supervi-sors, and administrators can assist in accomplishing this goal. Anotherimportant role that local administrators can play is to buffer the detri-mental effects of negative publicity that typically accompanies child fa-talities by establishing and sustaining positive relations with localmedia and by championing media coverage of local successes. For ex-ample, when local office administrator(s) have an established, positiverelationship with the local media, employees do not feel targeted by thelocal media when a child fatality occurs.

Our findings continue to document that mentoring and close super-vision of new child welfare staff by competent supervisors and experiencedworkers are critical to developing worker expertise and commitment tochildren and families and the larger child welfare profession. On-the-jobtraining was viewed as far more important than standardized, required,policy-focused training provided by the state child welfare agency.These findings support previous research concerning the role of qualitysupervision in the retention of workers (Collins-Camargo & Groeber,2003; Harrison, 1995; Kern et al., 1993; Landsman, 2001; McCarthy,2003; Rycraft, 1994). The fact that these committed survivors sostrongly valued mentoring and on-the-job training reinforces the impor-tance of clinical supervision practices to professional learning and de-


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velopment, and to employee retention as well. Thus, administratorsshould give priority to the careful selection and continuing professionaldevelopment of supervisors so they can become proficient mentors andprofessional role models for workers, particularly new workers. Unfortu-nately, supervision in public child welfare agencies is sometimes limitedto administrative functions and to policy and compliance concerns. Ourfindings clearly support the need for more personalized supervision thataccommodates individual differences among workers and that ad-dresses the emotional and teaching functions described earlier byKadushin (1976).

Those interviewed also identified personal recognition for hard workand success as an important factor related to employee retention in childwelfare. Thus, state and local administrators need to build both formaland informal structures to communicate appreciation of employees’contributions to the organization and their exceptional efforts and workwith society’s most troubled and needy population. Visibly sharing in-formation about workers’ and supervisors’ efforts and successes via thenews media, agency newsletters, public forums, staff meetings, and inmany other ways, are all possibilities to communicate the value of em-ployees to the organization and to the larger community. Alternatively,frequent, informal communications and feedback to employees by ad-ministrators (e.g., personal comments about effort, persistence, qualityof work, and successes with children and families) strengthen employ-ees’ commitments to child welfare (Ellett et al., 2003) and to the childwelfare organization as well (Landsman, 2001).

We asked our committed survivors to identify personal characteris-tics of individuals that remained employed in child welfare. Their re-sponses suggest that staff retention might well be strengthened bygiving greater attention to personal characteristics of new hires such asstrong levels of human caring, altruism, and a commitment to childrenand families and to the larger profession of child welfare. Our findingsare consistent with previous studies employing a variety of methodolo-gies, including large-scale quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methodsstudies (Ellett, 2000; Ellett & Ellett, 1997; Ellett et al., 2003; Harrison,1995; Kern et al., 1993; Landsman, 2001; Reagh, 1994; Rycraft, 1994)that have linked the retention of child welfare professionals to the per-sonal motivation to help others.


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Implications for Upper Level Administration

Our findings also have implications for upper level (regional or stateagency) administrators and the formulation of personnel policies and prac-tices. For example, developing and implementing policies and career pathsthat allow child welfare employees the opportunity to periodically changeprogram assignments might be developed to strengthen employee reten-tion. Such policies could allow changes in assignments within the organi-zation, and could be implemented in a manner that is not punitive to thosewho might leave the agency and then choose to return (e.g., forcing formerworkers to return at entry level pay due to breaks in service). Some of theparticipants in this study reported leaving the organization for a few yearsand then returning. Since experienced employees with good performancerecords are a valuable source of expertise, personnel policies might be de-veloped and implemented that provide reappointment preferences for thosewho leave employment in child welfare, and who later choose to return.Such policies can be an important means of recouping investments of hu-man capital, maintaining experience and expertise levels, and ultimatelystrengthening the quality of services to clients. Finally, upper level admin-istrators need to advocate for competitive salaries to preserve the consider-able agency investments in retaining competent child welfare employeeswhile also advocating for reasonable workloads so that clients can receivequality services.

The child welfare staff we interviewed also discussed movementwithin the agency to find the appropriate fit between capabilities, inter-ests, and job demands, as a survival strategy. Thus, child welfare admin-istrators might strengthen employee retention by assisting workers infinding their niche within the agency. It is often assumed that the mostcompetent, committed direct services staff will seek a career path to-ward supervision and/or administration. All of the participants in thisstudy had eleven or more years of experience in child welfare. How-ever, over half (12 of 21) chose to remain in direct services positions.This finding suggests that many, professionally committed public childworkers may prefer careers in direct services. Policy makers and upperlevel administrators might improve retention of this group of experi-enced workers by creating and implementing a dual career path model.In this kind of model, those who choose a career path that follows super-vision and/or administration can do so. Those who desire to remain indirect services throughout their careers can make that choice. Bothpaths might be similarly indexed by years of experience and salary lev-


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els that would allow front line staff to remain in direct services for theirentire careers. Creation of both vertical and horizontal career paths forchild welfare staff can enrich the possibilities of career choices, while atthe same time, can encourage and equitably compensate staff for theircontributions to preferred job assignments and work tasks.

Implications for Social Work Education

The findings of this study also have implications for social work edu-cation. The value that these committed survivors placed on quality clini-cal supervision identifies a continuing need to incorporate leadershipand supervisory skills education courses into social work curricula atthe pre-service level, particularly for current public child welfare em-ployees entering IV-E funded MSW programs. Students in IV-E pro-grams, with prior child welfare experience and a commitment to thisdifficult area of social work practice, offer considerable promise as fu-ture child welfare leaders throughout the statewide organization.

Social work curricula in higher education should also address the im-portance of understanding the workings of large bureaucracies and helpstudents develop skills to successfully navigate barriers, and to negoti-ate and resolve conflicts within these complex organizational systems(see Figure 1). The development of these skills may be of particular im-portance to students who plan to seek post-graduate employment inlarge, urban settings. Finally, the central importance of mentoring byveteran workers and supervisors in this study suggests the need forschools of social work to carefully consider field placements that matchthe needs of prospective child welfare professionals and their fieldplacement mentors. Veteran MSWs who have chosen careers in directservices may prove to be the best field instructors for social workstudents interested in a professional career in public child welfare.

SUMMARY

The collective findings from this study identify, from the experiencesand perspectives of long-term, highly experienced, competent, commit-ted child welfare employees, many personal and organizational factorsthat contribute to employee retention in this most difficult work context.We listened to and documented career reminiscences of those we inter-viewed, their identification of problems and concerns, their attestations


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and assertions about what it takes to do this taxing work, and their sug-gestions for strengthening the holding power of child welfare organiza-tions for employees. Their perspectives and stories brought to life andconsiderably enhanced our understanding of the results of our largermixed-methods, statewide study (Ellett et al., 2003). Our findings showthat studying the perspectives and hearing the voices of those whochoose to remain employed in child welfare throughout their careers(our committed survivors), offers a rich and informative alternative tomore traditional studies of child welfare staff turnover and burnoutcomprising most of the extant literature. Replications of this study canbroaden our understanding of the varied and complex mix of personaland organizational factors that contribute to individuals’ decisions toremain employed in a most difficult and important work setting.

NOTE

1. As part of the larger study, 60 focus groups were conducted statewide and includedworkers and supervisors (n = 385) with varying lengths of employment in public childwelfare. Participants in these groups were asked to discuss personal and organization fac-tors related to both retention and turnover, frequently devoting inordinate amounts of in-terview time to turnover if not refocused on factors related to retention.

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Improving Retention Among Public Child Welfare Workers