Abstract
Research on the impact of the keyworker-child relationship on residential staff is scarce. This longitudinal study investigated the potential moderating effects of child and keyworker attachment styles on the link between child behavioural problems and staff burnout and the moderating effects of child attachment style on the link between keyworker attachment style and keyworker burnout. Participants included 261 children and 59 residential child care workers, from 5 orphanages in Saudi Arabia. Five self-report measures were utilised: The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, the Security Scale, the Coping Strategies Questionnaire, the Maslach Burnout Inventory and the Experiences in Close Relationships Questionnaire. Keyworkers caring for relatively non-avoidant children and those with an avoidant attachment style themselves experienced relatively high burnout a year later. Relatively high burnout was also reported by avoidant keyworkers who cared for avoidant and generally insecure children, while anxiously attached keyworkers reported relatively high burnout when they cared for children with any type of insecure attachment style. The present findings highlight essential interpersonal processes involved in the development of burnout in residential child care workers and call for the employment of attachment-focused interventions as measures of burnout prevention.
Highlights
Research suggests that burnout is common among residential child care workers and identifies main contributing factors, such as lack of institutional and supervisory support, casual contracts, frequent change of institution, low educational attainment and young age (Decker, Bailey, & Westergaard, 2002)
Interclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) for burnout were higher than the acceptable threshold (ICCMBI, T1 = .11 and ICCMBI, T2 = .39), so in all analyses we controlled for nesting effects by utilising four dummy variables indicating site
Staff age was correlated with SDQT1 (r = −.18, p = .01), MBIT1 (r = −.30, p < .001), and MBIT2 (r = −.26, p < .001), Staff AvoidanceT1 (r = −.16, p = .022) and Staff AnxietyT1 (r = −.29, p < .022) while staff gender was associated with all three child attachment styles (Wilks = .82, F3,207 = 14.28, p < .001) and staff burnout at T2 (Wilks = .76, F3,207 = 21.19, p < .001)
Summary
This was a longitudinal study, measuring orphanage staff and child variables at two time points (T1 and T2). The interval between the two measurements was 1 year, ensuring that all pairs were given enough time for a bond to develop. In addition to basic demographics, staff variables measured included burnout and adult attachment style while child variables included attachment to the keyworker and behavioural problems
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