Child welfare workers who are exhausted yet satisfied with their jobs: how do they do it?

Abstract

A B S T R AC TIn response to a study of Canadian child welfare workers that unexpectedly found participants scoring high on a measure of emotional exhaustion (burnout) and, at the same time, high on overall job satisfaction, this paper reviews research that has investigated these constructs in the social work literature as well as in selected studies from sociology, social psychology, management and women's studies. The review reveals that some previous studies also report the coexistence of high levels of emotional exhaustion and strong job satisfaction in child welfare and social worker samples. Several studies have suggested that individual characteristics, including finding reward in helping others, having a commitment to the mandate of child welfare and believing that one's labour is 'making a difference', contribute to satisfaction with child welfare work in spite of work overload and emotional exhaustion. Attributions regarding causes of exhaustion, coping strategies and goal orientation may also attenuate the expected negative effects of emotional exhaustion. Considerable evidence supports the positive influence of variables organizational managers can control, including job autonomy, supportive supervisors, workload, promotional opportunities and perception of personal safety. The degree to which this phenomenon is associated with female socialization and the 'ethic of care' underlying social work is discussed. Implications for child welfare research, practice and policy are offered. I N T R O D U C T I O NThis paper was prompted by unexpected results from a study assessing burnout 1 and job satisfaction (JS) among direct service workers of four child welfare agencies. The study was implemented during transitions within child welfare agencies in Ontario, Canada, associated with changes in legislation that broadened the legal definition of a child in need of protection, demanded shorter time parameters for response and increased required documentation. We hypothesized that levels of emotional exhaustion (EE/ burnout) would be high, and JS would be low, because of long-standing reports of high turnover and stressful working conditions in these agencies. The study found that, of 220 direct service workers (181 women and 39 men), 44% scored in the high range on EE (48% of the women and 28% of the men); 32% scored in the moderate range (30% of the women and 38% of the men); and 24% scored in the low range (22% of the women and 33% of the men) ( χ 2 (2, n = 220) = 5.382, P = 0.068).Of 232 direct service workers (192 women and 40 men), 41% (41% of the women and 40% of the men) were highly satisfied with their jobs overall; 49% were moderately satisfied (51% of the women and 45% of the men); and only 8% of the women and 15% of the men were low on overall JS. We were surprised by these high levels of JS, especially in view of the relatively high levels of EE. We were even more surprised

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