‘I'm So Stressed!’: A Longitudinal Model of Stress, Burnout and Engagement among Social Workers in Child Welfare Settings

Abstract

The well-documented day-to-day and long-term experiences of job stress and burnout among employees in child welfare organisations increasingly raise concerns among leaders, policy makers and scholars. Testing a theory-driven longitudinal model, this study seeks to advance understanding of the differential impact of job stressors (work–family conflict, role conflict and role ambiguity) and burnout (emotional exhaustion and depersonalisation) on employee disengagement (work withdrawal and exit-seeking behaviours). Data were collected at three six-month intervals from an availability sample of 362 front line social workers or social work supervisors who work in a large urban public child welfare organisation in the USA. The study's results yielded a good model fit (RMSEA = 0.06, CFI = 0.96, NFI = 0.94). Work–family conflict, role ambiguity and role conflict were found to impact work withdrawal and exit-seeking behaviours indirectly through burnout. The outcome variable, exit-seeking behaviours, was positively impacted by depersonalisation and work withdrawal at a statistically significant level. Overall, findings, at least in the US context, highlight the importance of further examining the development of job burnout among social workers and social work supervisors working in child welfare settings, as well as the utility of long-term administrative strategies to mitigate risks of burnout development and support engagement.

‘Lost in transition?’ – Newly educated social workers’ reflections on their first months in practice

“…The question of how to organise an initial 'sheltered' time at the workplace where the newly educated social worker can learn on-the-job before having to take full responsibility is neither new nor easy to solve. The reality of high turnover, vacancies and many newly educated social workers at the same workplace (Blomberg, Kallio, Kroll, & Saarinen, 2014;de Panfilis & Zlotnik, 2008;Tham, 2007;Tham & Meagher, 2009;Travis, Lizano, & Mor Barak, 2016;Webb & Carpenter, 2012) do not provide the best opportunities for giving new practitioners the sheltered time, support and guidance they would have needed. Initiatives such as the newly qualified child and family social workers (NQSWs) programme in England to support new practitioners to build their skills, competence and self-confidence in the first year of practice and an assessed and supported year in employment (ASYE) arising from this programme are promising developments (Carpenter et al, 2015;Social Work Reform Board, 2010).…”

Effect of trauma-informed care on hair cortisol concentration in youth welfare staff and client physical aggression towards staff: results of a longitudinal study

“…However, we have decided against an imputation of the missing values because participation in the entire implementation process is crucial for evaluating the effectiveness of TIC. High rates of staff turnover are a common problem in social services [76][77][78] and might have contributed to the small sample size in our longitudinal study. However, we controlled the attrition regarding different variables and could not find significant differences regarding psychosocial variables, hair cortisol concentration and burn out risk.…”

“…The authors conclude that the staffs own psychological response mirrors the traumatic response of their clients thus, the staff members feel traumatised themselves, thereby possibly contributing to further client traumatisation. High rates of traumatic stress and/or compassion fatigue are common among youth welfare staff and may lead to job burnout, work withdrawal, and turnover [76][77][78].…”

‘What is the headspace they are in when they are making those referrals?’Exploring the lifeworlds and experiences of health and social care practitioners undertaking risk work within the Prevent Strategy

“…That said, practitioners may reclaim autonomy through informal methods of managing risk such as the use of intuition (Ruston, 2006;Scamell & Stewart, 2014). Some studies have suggested connections between risk work and practitioner depression, burnout and compassion fatigue (Travis, Lizano, & Mor Barak, 2016;Truter, Fouché, & Theron, 2016), while a fear of making the wrong' decision may also shape experiences (Horlick-Jones, 2005;Stanford, 2010;Warner, 2006). Furthermore, risk work can affect practitioners' personal and professional identities.…”