COVID-19’s Social Ecological Impacts on Health and Human Services Worker Well-being

Magruder, Lisa N.; Wilke, Dina J.; Radey, Melissa; Cain, Megan; Yelick, Anna

doi:10.1080/19371918.2021.1997864

Cited by 12 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 23 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Concerns for personal and family safety when conducting home visits or face-to-face welfare checks were likely to add to workers’ levels of stress and anxiety. Magruder et al (2022) found that 43.9% of the child welfare workforce indicated negative effects on multiple areas of well-being due to COVID-19. In addition, the merging of personal and professional responsibilities due to stay-at-home orders, particularly for those with younger children, increased stress levels and the potential to be more vulnerable to the effects of trauma exposure (Magruder et al, 2022; Miller et al, 2020).…”

Section: Contextual Consideration Of the Effects Of Covid-19mentioning

confidence: 99%

Work-related trauma exposure: Influence on child welfare workers’ mental health and commitment to the field.

King¹

2024

Traumatology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The field of child welfare continues to be plagued by high rates of worker turnover that further complicate the challenging work of protecting and enhancing child welfare in the United States. The child welfare workforce plays a crucial role in promoting child well-being and preventing abuse and neglect, but safety, permanence, and well-being outcomes of children are negatively impacted by high rates of workers leaving their jobs. Numerous organizational and individual factors have been studied in relation to worker turnover, and while there is a foundation of research related to direct and indirect trauma separately, different typologies of trauma have rarely been studied together. This study examined child welfare workers' exposure to work-related trauma from a stress-response framework. A statewide sample of child welfare workers (n = 657) responded to items relating to their experiences of client perpetrated violence, deaths or injuries on their caseloads, and secondary trauma. They completed scales measuring their current levels of depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder, and overall commitment to the field of child welfare. Three typologies of trauma emerged: primary trauma, caseload trauma, and secondary trauma. Structural equation modeling analysis indicated that primary trauma had a small, but positive relationship with commitment to the field (B = .17, p , .05). Caseload trauma predicted workers' levels of secondary trauma (B = .14, p , .05), and secondary trauma had a strong, predictive relationship with worker mental health (B = .77, p , .001). Creating typologies to distinguish different kinds of trauma allowed for a nuanced look at workers' experiences and how they influence outcomes related to the mental health of workers and commitment to the field.

show abstract

Section: Contextual Consideration Of the Effects Of Covid-19mentioning

confidence: 99%

Work-related trauma exposure: Influence on child welfare workers’ mental health and commitment to the field.

King¹

2024

Traumatology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Other scholars have argued that there might exist a relationship between social locations (i.e., privileges, marginalities) and the exacerbation of psychosocial impacts, especially for individuals who are BIPOC (Gianfrancesco et al, 2021 ; Lund, 2020 ; Sze et al, 2020 ), women (Cabarkapa et al, 2020 ; Danet Danet, 2021 ; Volk et al, 2021 ), parents and caregivers (Magruder et al, 2021 ; Volk et al, 2021 ), people with disabilities (Cieza et al, 2021 ; Shakespeare et al, 2021 ), and queer and trans people (Kamal et al, 2021 ; Ruprecht et al, 2020 ). One study empirically confirmed that social workers ( n = 1568) who were married, heterosexual, physically healthier and more financially secure generally reported less distress than other clinicians (Miller et al, 2021 ).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The study of frontline healthcare workers ( n = 103) conducted by Bender et al ( 2021 ) explicated that while interpersonal connection was increasingly difficult due to quarantine and isolation protocols, emotional connectedness was nonetheless a supportive coping strategy that strengthened practitioners’ resilience during COVID-19. Exploring the ecological impacts of COVID-19 on health and human service workers ( n = 531), Magruder and colleagues ( 2021 ) found that practitioners experienced impacts across various proximal and distal domains, including (1) interpersonal impacts, such as fear of infecting loved ones; (2) intrapersonal impacts, such as facing infection or hospitalization themselves; (3) organizational impacts, such as increased caseloads at work; (4) community impacts, such as isolation from community; and, (5) public policy impacts, such as uncertainty or frustration with governmental policy responses to COVID-19. To add, in the qualitative portion of a recent large-scale Canadian survey, social workers ( n = 2470) reported experiencing the following nine themes: increased work-load; loss of employment; redeployment to new settings; early retirement; concern for personal health and safety; social workers in private practice seeing fewer clients; personal caregiving responsibilities; limiting recent graduates’ employment potential and social workers experiencing new opportunities.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There is rising concern that the COVID-19 global pandemic will generate long-lasting impacts on collective wellness. A mounting threat of social upheaval, economic decline, psychological hardship, and largescale health repercussions has imposed global turmoil of stress, grief, loss, and uncertainty—particularly for marginalized groups, namely Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) (Gianfrancesco et al, 2021 ; Lund, 2020 ; Sze et al, 2020 ), women (Cabarkapa et al, 2020 ; Danet Danet, 2021 ; Volk et al, 2021 ), parents and caregivers (Magruder et al, 2021 ; Volk et al, 2021 ), people with disabilities (Cieza et al, 2021 ; Shakespeare et al, 2021 ), and queer and trans people (Kamal et al, 2021 ; Ruprecht et al, 2020 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Exploring Shared Trauma in the Time of COVID: A Simulation-Based Survey Study of Mental Health Clinicians

et al. 2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

From fear of contracting the virus, isolation from physical distancing, to navigating lifework balance, the COVID-19 pandemic is expected to leave long-lasting psychosocial impacts on many. Shared trauma refers to similar psychological reactions to an extraordinary community event when experienced by both the clinicians and clients. We examined the experiences mong mental health clinicians in Canada and the United States (n = 196) in this online survey study during the second phase of the pandemic (Spring 2021). In addition to using traditional survey items (e.g., demographics, scales, and short answers), we also used video-recorded Simulated Clients (SC; i.e., professional actors) as a novel method to elicit the participants’ assessment of the SCs and the psychosocial impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using shared trauma as a theoretical framework, we analyzed both quantitative and qualitative data. Quantitative results suggested that although these mental health clinicians certainly reported experiencing psychosocial impacts of the pandemic themselves, these shared experiences with client and general populations did not greatly impact how they understood the SCs. Qualitative results helped further contextualize the clinicians’ own personal and professional lives. Implications for clinical practice and further research related to shared trauma are discussed.

show abstract

“…Yet, a national study identified these professionals only stay in their positions for less than 2 years and estimates of turnover are reported to range from 15% to 40% (Boyas, Wind, & Ruiz, 2013;Edwards & Wildeman, 2018). Research has shown that stress associated with working in this field is responsible for employee turnover and negative outcomes for families and children (Griffiths, Desrosiers, Gabbard, Royse, & Piescher, 2019a;Royse & Griffiths, 2019), and the heightened stress associated with the COVID-19 pandemic may further contribute to this national problem (Gallup, 2021;Magruder, Wilke, Radey, Cain, & Yelick, 2022).…”

Section: Introduction and Presenting Problemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Physiological evidence of escalating stress during COVID-19: a longitudinal assessment of child welfare workers

Griffiths

Link

Haughtigan

et al. 2023

Journal of Public Child Welfare

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Studies have shown that stress has contributed to employee turnover and retention problems for agencies, and at the individual level, chronic stress has been associated with coronary heart disease, anxiety, depression, and many other negative effects. In the past, the extent of stress one has felt has been measured by subjective paper-and-pencil instruments; however, recent technological advances have improved our ability to obtain accurate biofeedback assessments from wearable instruments. The Kentucky Child Welfare Workforce Wellness Initiative is the first known study to explore physiological stress in a sample (n = 32) of child welfare professionals using biometric technology (Firstbeat Bodyguard 2) and the first to report that data longitudinally over a four-month period. The study revealed that a variable associated with the strength of the Autonomic Nervous System (RMSSD) remained below the norms for a healthy population as participants experienced consistent and prolonged physiological stress. When examined relatively to the agency's lifting of COVID restrictions and returning to face-to-face service delivery, stress levels began to further rise almost to significant levels (p < .10) and the participants' ability to achieve a state of physiological relaxation significantly decreased. Future research employing biometric technology is also suggested.

show abstract

COVID-19’s Social Ecological Impacts on Health and Human Services Worker Well-being

Cited by 12 publications

References 23 publications

Work-related trauma exposure: Influence on child welfare workers’ mental health and commitment to the field.

Work-related trauma exposure: Influence on child welfare workers’ mental health and commitment to the field.

Exploring Shared Trauma in the Time of COVID: A Simulation-Based Survey Study of Mental Health Clinicians

Physiological evidence of escalating stress during COVID-19: a longitudinal assessment of child welfare workers

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About