Public Child Welfare Research Articles

Professional development opportunities as retention incentives in child welfare

Abstract This study examined the career paths of 415 Title IV-E MSW graduates in one state retrospectively over 180 months post-graduation to discover factors that could be important in affecting retention in public child welfare agencies. The Title IV-E educational program is designed to be a retention strategy at the same time as it is a professionalization strategy. We surmised that perceived organizational support (POS) contributes to retention by acknowledging the workers' needs for career development support. The median survival time for these child welfare social workers was 43 months for the first job and 168 months for the entire child welfare career. The initial analysis showed steep drops in retention occurred at 24–36 months post-graduation, approximately at the end of the Title IV-E work obligation. Upon further examination, Kaplan–Meier tests showed organizational factors relevant to workers' professional career development predicted retention. Having access to continuing education and agency-supported case-focused supervision for licensure were correlated with retention at the 24–36 month post-graduation mark. At 72 months post-graduation, promotion to supervisor was a significant factor found to encourage retention. Being a field instructor for MSW students and being promoted to a managerial position were not significantly related to retention.

Social Work Education and Public Child Welfare: A Review of the Peer-Reviewed Literature on Title IV-E Funded Programs

Collaboration between public child welfare agencies and social work education is not a new strategy. The relationship was kindled in the 1909 White House Conference and enshrined in Title IV-E support for social work education for public child welfare workers (Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980). Federal support for the preparation of social workers in the field of child welfare can be traced as far back as 1935 with the inception of the Child Welfare Provisions of the Social Security Act (Zlotnik, 2002). Although IV-E program evaluation research remains small, the contributions of existing studies have added to the field. This review highlights those contributions and accentuates the need to improve research efforts in terms of designs rigor, including sample size, power, effect size, instrumentation, analyses, and outcomes. In addition, it underscores the need to move forward in connecting outcomes to families and children by focusing on safety, permanence, and well-being.

Taking a Long View in Child Welfare: How Can We Evaluate Intervention and Child Wellbeing Over Time?

This paper synthesises ideas generated from an international knowledge exchange seminar series to explore the potential and pitfalls in utilising routine administrative data and survey data for longitudinal research about children involved in public child welfare services. Methodological, technical and ethical issues are explored, including the challenges in capturing the nature, focus and intensity of intervention. It is suggested that assessing child wellbeing across a range of dimensions in the short, medium and long term may provide a better conceptual basis for research than defining specific outcomes. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.‘Synthesises ideas generated from an international knowledge exchange seminar series’Key Practitioner Messages: In responding to child maltreatment, it is crucial to record and understand the social context. Information systems can be used beyond individual cases, disciplines and jurisdictions. Their potential when combined will help us understand child maltreatment to a greater degree. Child protection work is complex and practice is not straightforward. Understanding what works best, for whom and in what circumstances can be enhanced by looking at multiple disciplines over long periods of time.

Relationships between work–life balance and job-related factors among child welfare workers

Abstract This study examined the relationships between work–life balance and several job-related factors among 573 public child welfare workers in a northeastern state in the United States of America. It explored job-related correlates of work–life balance and the possible mediating role of work–life balance between these factors and job satisfaction. Multiple regression analysis demonstrated that the job-related factors organizational support, job value, work time, and income were significantly associated with work–life balance among child welfare workers. It also confirmed that work–life balance partially mediated the associations of organizational support and job value with job satisfaction. Implications for child welfare research, policy, and practice are proposed based on the empirical findings.

Supervision During Child Welfare System Reform: Qualitative Study of Factors Influencing Case Manager Implementation of a New Practice Model

The purpose of this research was to learn from public child welfare case managers what they wanted from direct supervisors during times of organizational change. Case managers were interviewed about how supervisors supported or hindered their use of a new model of practice. Data were analyzed using a content analysis approach. Findings indicated that case managers want supervisors to communicate with them about how to perform their jobs under the new model and support to help alleviate the stress they experience from the uncertainty of organizational change.

Intention to leave in social workers and educators employed in voluntary child welfare agencies

Abstract Introduction Individuals employed in child welfare settings can have a profound impact on children in care. Research shows that direct care staff can have an effect on emotional and physical outcomes for children with whom they work. This paper seeks to expand knowledge of the child welfare workforce by studying educators employed in child welfare settings and comparing their job satisfaction and intent to leave with that of prevention workers employed in similar settings. Materials and methods Data for prevention workers (n = 538) were obtained from workers employed at all preventive service programs under contract with a large municipality. Data for educators were obtained from voluntary agencies located elsewhere in the state (n = 139). The instrument was a modified version of a survey developed to examine job satisfaction and potential turnover among public child welfare workers. Domains measured included various aspects of job satisfaction, intention to leave, and whether workers regretted taking their jobs. Data were analyzed using bivariate analysis and structural equation modeling (SEM). Results While both educators and prevention workers varied on different domains of job satisfaction, their overall satisfaction did not differ nor did their intention to leave their jobs. Satisfaction with contingent rewards, the nature of the work and opportunities for promotion along with not regretting taking one's job were predictive of thinking about leaving one's job. Thinking about leaving was predictive of taking concrete steps towards actual leaving. Discussion While people both prevention workers and educators report different levels of job satisfaction and work conditions in their agencies, job title itself has less to do with a worker's intention to leave, as measured by both thinking about leaving and taking steps towards actively looking for a new job, than other factors. Larger contextual factors may be at play in workers' decisions to stay employed. Suggestions are made for reducing turnover intentions along with suggestions for further study to clarify the role of organizational factors in workers' intention to leave.

Timely and Needed Perspectives on Differential Response in Child Protective Services

This article is an invited commentary and analysis of the authors’ completed systematic evaluation of Child Protective Services (CPS) differential response (DR) models. I write this commentary based on 25 years of public child welfare experience followed by 13 years as a social work professor and researcher. In their review of DR, the authors’ identify critical and unresolved issues in DR implementation and program evaluation as well as recommendation to improve DR within CPS. In the course of the authors’ evaluation, they completed interviews with key informants in states that have implemented DR; an important contribution to CPS literature. Concepts, issues, and controversies in the DR literature are discussed in view of CPS practice models and history of policy making.

Using Return on Investment to Evaluate Child Welfare Training Programs

The impact of child abuse and neglect has affected many aspects of society beyond just those in child welfare. In 2010, there were 408,425 children in foster care in the United States (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2011), and at least that many children who were living in the homes of their parents but under the jurisdiction of a Child Protective Services (CPS) agency. Researchers have also conservatively estimated that there are over 52,000 CPS workers in the nation providing services to these children (Barth, Lloyd, Christ, Chapman, & Dickinson, 2008). Based on estimates by Wang & Holton (2007), the annual economic impact of child abuse and neglect amortized for inflation is over $111 billion, of which less than 25 percent is directly related to child welfare expenditures. The other expenditures relate to the impact on the health, judicial, and education systems and to the loss to society in terms of productivity. Collins (2008) suggested that the field of child welfare is a very difficult area of practice involving many social problems of children and families that require a high level of expertise from child welfare workers. Collins, Kim, and Amodeo (2010) argued that any best child welfare practice has a worker at the core who can demonstrate knowledge of a content area, attitudes that are supportive of the children and families they serve, and skill in the delivery of a specific service. It is because of this needed expertise that training is such a fundamental part of child welfare services. In fact, training is so critical that the Child and Family Services Reviews (CFSRs), a process in which the federal government holds child welfare services agencies responsible, has included training as one of the seven elements related to the outcomes of safety, permanency, and well-being (van Zyl, Antle, & Barbee, 2011). Public child welfare agencies spend large amounts of resources on training their staff to provide high-quality services (Collins, 2008), which in part is due to the high national annual average turnover rate of 26 percent for child welfare workers (CPS-Human Resource Services [CPS-HRS], 2006). Federal Title IV-E child welfare expenditures for training between 1995 and 2008 averaged $238.6 million annually and accounted for 3.9 percent ($3.3 billion) of the overall $85.1 billion in Title IV-E expenditures (U.S. House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee, 2011). Collins (2008) suggested that the evaluation of such training is important because of the need to ultimately identify the best means of conducting training that leads to best child welfare practices. Salas and Cannon-Bowers (2001) noted that, unfortunately, the evaluation of training is easier said than done. They said that this evaluation is resource intensive, has high costs associated with it, has political implications and, worst of all, could show that the training did not work. In fact, though training is important, there is very little evidence to establish that training has been effective in addressing very complex issues related to child welfare, such as cultural competency, diversity, and antiracism (Johnson, Antle, & Barbee, 2009). The evaluation of the child welfare training has been historically guided by Donald Kirkpatrick's taxonomy of training developed more than 50 years ago (Antle, Barbee, & van Zyl, 2008; Kirkpatrick & Kirkpatrick, 2006). This taxonomy includes the reactions of workers (level 1) such as those indicated by course evaluations, learning (level 2) typically indicated by pre- and posttests, transfer of learning (level 3) as indicated by case reviews, and organizational impact (level 4) as measures of organizational statistics. More recently, others have suggested a fifth level of evaluation called the return on investment (ROI) (J. J. Phillips, 1998;J. J. Phillips & Phillips, 2008). Unfortunately, there have been only two research studies on level 4 evaluation in child welfare in the last 40 years (Antle et al. …

Can Public Child Welfare Help to Prevent Child Maltreatment? Promising Findings from Los Angeles

Can Public Child Welfare Help to Prevent Child Maltreatment? Promising Findings from Los Angeles

Family group decision making: Measuring fidelity to practice principles in public child welfare

Abstract This study describes the development and validation of a short, self-administered fidelity measure used to capture the perspectives of a range of individuals participating in a family group decision making conference. Exploratory factor analyses suggested either a two or a three factor solution. Findings from confirmatory factor analysis supported a three factor model that includes sets of practices yielding: (1) Productive Decision Making; (2) Family Group Inclusion; and (3) Professional Supportiveness. These results provide direction to public child welfare practitioners and policymakers about the importance and the feasibility of attending to multiple perspectives in assessing program delivery.

The importance of the social work degree in working with families and children: implications for China's growing social work profession

The purpose of this paper is to explore how social work education for child welfare professionals in the United States can be used to inform the Chinese social work curriculum. The recent proliferation of social work education programs in China may be encouraging news to child welfare scholars, but the infrastructure needed to develop a professionalized child welfare work force in China remains lacking. In the United States, social work education for child welfare professionals is supported by Title IV-E funding, which is consistent with the prevailing philosophy that workers with social work education achieve better outcomes for maltreated children than do those without social work degrees. The authors of this article conducted a recent evaluation of public child welfare workers' performance in the state of Texas, which substantiates this belief. Results from this study are presented along with a discussion of how Chinese social work scholars might apply the conclusions to improve child welfare in China.

Do Organisational Culture and Climate Really Matter for Employee Turnover in Child Welfare Agencies?

The purpose of this article is to investigate the effects of organisational culture and climate on employee turnover at public child welfare agencies. The data are drawn from public child welfare agencies in New York State. The empirical analysis indicates (i) that low-turnover agencies have more positive or constructive organisational culture and climate than high-turnover agencies; (ii) that, in particular, emphasis on rewards among organisational culture subscales and reduction in workload among organisational climate subscales show significant differences between two groups of agencies; and (iii) that only emphasis on rewards among organisational culture subscales has a significant and negative effect, or reduction, on employee turnover rates.

North Carolina's Child Welfare Education Collaborative (NCCWEC): One State's Long-Term Commitment Toward an Improved Workforce

One state's Title IV-E child welfare social work education collaborative is delineated. This multi-year collaborative between public universities and the state's child welfare system has resulted in funding and field placements for 725 BSW and MSW students in 74 of the state's 100 counties. Further, 589 collaborative graduates have been hired in public child welfare. In addition, beneficial relationships among university personnel, local and state child welfare staff and administrators, and state legislators have enabled this collaborative to continue during difficult economic times. Finally, current challenges, lessons learned, and recommendations for future child welfare social work education initiatives are examined.

Successful Student Recruitment for Public Child Welfare: Results From California's Title IV-E MSW Stipend Program Evaluation

Data on seven cohorts of MSW students revealed successful recruitment efforts of the California Social Work Education Center Title IV-E program to select students most suitable for work in public child welfare. Compared to non-IV-E students, racially diverse IV-E students were more committed to direct services and case management but not drawn to private practice. Unlike non-IV-E students, IV-E students preferred work with poor and at risk families, but not clinical clients. The IV-E students' future goals tended toward service, not career advancement. Additionally, a high percentage of IV-E graduates remain in child welfare at least three years post-graduation.

U.S. Children's Bureau Collaboration With Schools of Social Work: Professionalizing and Improving Child Welfare

In celebration and commemoration of the U.S. Children's Bureau Centennial, the Journal of Public Child Welfare (JPCW) has published this double special issue titled “One Hundred Years of the U.S. C...

Twenty-Five Years of the Children's Bureau Investment in Social Work Education

One focus of the Children's Bureau over the past 25–30 years has been the provision of funds for social work students at the BSW and MSW levels to specialize in child welfare. Universities have been taking advantage of Title IV-E funds to prepare social work students for public child welfare work. To assess current practices, a survey was sent to all U.S. social work programs to determine how many had a child welfare emphasis, examine how programs ran, and evaluate the programs. Descriptive results and findings from the most sophisticated evaluations are reviewed and implications provided.

Timing of exits to legal permanency from out-of-home care: The importance of systems and implications for assessing institutional accountability

Abstract Achieving legal permanency (i.e., family reunification, adoption, or legal guardianship) for children placed in out-of-home care due to abuse, neglect, or dependency is one of the primary goals of the public child welfare system. Following through the end of 2008 children who first entered out-of-home care in the State of Washington between 2001 and 2007 (n = 36,797), this study identifies significant variation between jurisdictions within the state in the rate at which children experience legal permanency, variation that cannot be readily explained by differences in the characteristics of the populations served. Interactions between the juvenile courts and child welfare agencies appear to explain much of the observed geographic variation in outcomes. Juvenile court involvement varies considerably across the state; differences in the likelihood and timing of court involvement are partially due to differences in the availability of services to troubled youth and partially due to local variation in decision-making about when to involve families with the courts. Non-court-involved children are more likely to reunify and reunify much more quickly than court-involved children. Thus, variation by region in the mix of children who are court-involved versus non-court involved influences regional performance in achieving permanency for children. These findings have implications for efforts to hold institutions accountable for achieving legal permanency for children in out-of-home care.

Professionalization in public child welfare: Historical context and workplace outcomes for social workers and non-social workers

This article recaps the historic role of the U.S. Children's Bureau in the development and professionalization of public child welfare services. A review of the empirical literature explores relationships between professional preparation and outcomes in service delivery, job performance and preparedness, social work values, and retention of staff. This review informs the evaluation study, which draws from a longitudinal appraisal of almost 10,000 child welfare workers in Texas, about one third with degrees in social work. The study found significant differences between the experiences and perceptions of those with social work degrees and those with degrees in other fields.

Existence, relatedness, or growth? Examining turnover intention of public child welfare caseworkers from a human needs approach

Abstract Research suggests pay and benefits are ineffective to sustain a stable workforce in public child welfare. It is important to know what other mechanisms would motivate caseworkers to stay at the job. However, the relation of factors contributing to the prevalent problem of turnover in public child welfare remains unclear in part due to a lack of theoretical base in research. This study therefore develops a conceptual framework based on the human needs theory of Alderfer (1969, 1972) to examine what motivates caseworkers' turnover intention. The three categories of needs are existence needs regarding pay and benefits, relatedness needs regarding at-work relationships and life-work balance, and growth needs regarding career development and fulfillment. With a secondary dataset of 289 caseworkers in a northeastern state, our structural equation modeling results show the dynamics between caseworkers' needs and their differential impact on turnover intention. The effect of existence needs on turnover intention is completely mediated by growth needs. Moreover, the variable of growth needs is found to have the strongest total effect among the three need categories. Administration and management may attenuate turnover intention by enhancing caseworkers' growth needs with respect to meaningfulness of daily practice, contingent rewards, and development of personal career goals.

Risk factors for mental health diagnoses among children adopted from the public child welfare system

Abstract Children awaiting adoption through the child welfare system often have “special needs,” or characteristics that make securing an adoptive home for them challenging. A subset of these youth experiences significant psychiatric symptomatology, which may pose a problem for the stability of the adoptive placement. Clinicians and policymakers require information about precursors to mental health difficulties in order to plan effectively for the placement of these children. This study examines potential child and biological family risk factors for the presence of a DSM-IV mental health diagnosis among 368 children placed for adoption by a special needs adoption program between February 1997 and April 2005 using logistic regression within the Generalized Estimating Equations (GEE) framework. A significant proportion of the children and biological parents in our study experienced serious adversity prior to adoptive placement. Older age at adoptive placement, white race, male gender, having more than one placement, and a history of sexual abuse are significant predictors of the presence of a mental health diagnosis in the logistic regression model. Biological parent incarceration is significantly associated with the absence of a mental health diagnosis. Adoptive placement is a key transition for youth who have often experienced significant loss and trauma prior to placement. Support of the adoptive family and youth can be critical to ensuring placement stability and may be especially salient for youth with documented mental health diagnoses and corresponding behavioral problems, which put children at increased risk for placement disruption. More work is needed to understand the interplay of risk and protective factors for mental health difficulties among youth adopted from the child welfare system, including how these are affected by child welfare policies, informal procedures, and resources to produce varying outcomes for children in peril.