Retention of front-line staff in child welfare: A systematic review of research

Abstract

With the growing recognition that a competent, committed workforce is critical to the effective delivery of public child welfare services, this study implemented a systematic review process to identify the personal and organizational factors that may enhance retention and limit turnover among child welfare workers. Starting with an extensive search of the literature across several decades and outreach to locate studies, the authors systematically analyzed research that used retention or turnover as the dependent variable. Of the 154 documents identified, 25 were research studies that focused on these variables. This paper focuses on reviewing the methods and findings of nine studies that used multivariate analyses to explore the relationships between organizational and/or personal factors as independent variables and retention or turnover as dependent variables. Although rigorous and systematic, this review was hampered by differing definitions, samples, measures, and analyses among these studies. However, the findings of this review reinforce the importance of workers' commitment to child welfare, self-efficacy, and low levels of emotional exhaustion as important personal factors for staying, and supervisory and co-worker support and salary and benefits as important organizational factors affecting retention. Suggestions for future research are provided.