"Workload and Workforce Issues in Child Welfare"

The Institute for the Advancement of Social Work Research (IASWR - www.iaswresearch.org) is working in partnership with Fostering Results to promote evidence-based strategies to develop and retain a competent workforce--the necessary underpinning of effective service delivery in child welfare. As strategies for aligning federal financing and outcomes are examined, efforts to ensure a competent and committed child welfare workforce must be a key ingredient.

A major component of IASWR's mission is to strengthen the connections between research and practice. IASWR's collaboration with Fostering Results will strengthen research/practice connections in the field of child welfare, with particular focus on the critically important workload and workforce issues.

The complex needs of children and families coupled with inadequately trained staff, high caseloads, and inadequate supervision often result in poor service outcomes. For the high-risk, vulnerable children and families served by child welfare agencies, access to highly skilled workers with time and knowledge to do thoughtful, comprehensive planning and to collaborate with the many players that make up the child welfare service delivery system (e.g., the child and their biological and foster family, legal aid, courts, mental health, substance abuse, education, housing, economic security) is a rarity across this country. Improving outcomes requires well-trained, highly skilled workers with sufficiently small caseloads to ensure that the decisions regarding who enters and leaves foster care are based on the most optimal information and practice available.


Over the course of the project we will be posting important resource information about the child welfare workforce for people to use. To view some of these resources, you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you don't have this software, you can download a free copy at the Adobe website. Here is installment 1:

http://www.socialworkers.org/advocacy/updates/2003/082003_a.asp
The National Association of Social Workers (NASW) has developed Fast Facts about the current state of the child welfare workforce. A useful resource for advocacy efforts.

http://www.cwla.org/programs/r2p/rrnews0209.pdf
The Child Welfare League of America (CWLA)'s Research to Practice (R2P) Initiative has developed a Research Round-Up that provides an overview of research and outcome studies related to recruiting and retaining competent staff.

http://www.cwla.org/programs/r2p/bibliowf.pdf
CWLA's R2P also developed an annotated bibliography on the child welfare workforce. It includes references to studies related to professional development, supervision, turnover, and education in child welfare as well as a few studies on the child day care workforce.

http://www.aecf.org/initiatives/hswi/
The Annie E. Casey Foundation's Workforce Initiative is the first national effort to address the critical condition of the workforce that helps care for America's most disadvantaged children and families. The initiative highlights the urgent need to recruit and retain workers who have the appropriate training and support to make crucial decisions that affect families. The site includes the report, "The Unsolved Challenge of System Reform: The Condition of the Frontline Human Services Workforce."

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d03357.pdf
"Child Welfare: HHS Could Play a Greater Role in Helping Child Welfare Agencies Recruit and Retain Staff" is a report from the General Accounting Office, requested by Congressmen Stark and Greenwood, that cites high caseloads and related administrative burdens, (which may take between 50 and 80 percent of the workers' time), as well as lack of supervision and training as impacting both their ability to work effectively and their decision to stay in the child welfare profession.

http://www.uky.edu/SocialWork/cswe/
Public child welfare agencies and social work education programs partner to educate new BSW and MSW students for child welfare careers and to provide degree education to many who are already working in the child welfare system. The Child Welfare Partnership Website includes information on Title IV-E Training Policies as well as links to a range of resources on strategies that work around the country.

http://www.afscme.org/pol-leg/djtc.htm
"Double Jeopardy: Caseworkers at Risk Helping At-Risk Kids: A Report on the Working Conditions Facing Child Welfare Workers" is a report of a survey by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees that examined working conditions for child welfare workers.

http://www.aphsa.org/Policy/Doc/cwwchallenge.pdf
"The Child Welfare Workforce Challenge: Results from a Preliminary Study" reports on a joint survey undertaken by the American Public Human Services Association, the Child Welfare League of America and the Alliance for Children and Families in 2000. The study gathered data from public and private non-profit agencies about the workforce challenges that are faced as well as identifying effective practices in recruiting and retaining a quality workforce.