‘Should I Stay or Should I Go’? The Experiences of Forty Social Workers in England Who Had Previously Indicated They Would Stay In or Leave Children and Families Social Work

Abstract

Abstract This article is focused on the concern about the retention of child and family social workers in England. Retention of workers is seen as a major issue for the delivery of quality services for service users, stability of workforces and development of social work. The article reviews international studies in relation to retention identifying a gap in relation to studies that have followed up those who indicated they were going to leave child and family social work but were unable to say whether they acted on this intention or not. This study focuses on forty semi-structured interviews with child and family social workers in year 2 of a five-year longitudinal study half of whom had indicated they would remain or leave social work practice and followed them up to as whether they did so or not. The findings indicated that there were major similarities between those who left and those who stayed. However, the importance of the interaction of organisational, job role and individual factors provides organisations with opportunities to mitigate such challenging aspects of children and families social work so that their workers feel supported, and able to respond to these challenges positively.