Strengthening Child Welfare Supervision: Implications from a Mixed Methods Study of Public Child Welfare Supervision

Background:

Supervisors in public child welfare play an important role in monitoring and mentoring the practice of child protection. Supervisors can affect one's satisfaction with their job, their intention to leave their position as well as the quality of services ultimately received by families. As child welfare agencies seek to develop their workforce and intervene effectively with families, supervision has been identified as critical to accomplishing these goals. Recognizing the importance of supervision, Arizona's Division of Children, Youth and Families (AZ DCYF) partnered with Arizona State University (ASU)'s Department of Social Work to explore the state of supervision at this public child welfare agency.

Methods:

This research project utilized mixed methods to answer the research question "What are the strengths and areas of improvement of the current supervision practice at AZ DCYF?". Specifically, the concurrent nested design described by Creswell (2003) was used. An online survey with 24 close ended questions and 2 open ended questions was created. The close ended questions included 3 subscales that were used to measure a) supervisor availability, b) quality of the supervisee/supervisor relationship and c) the level of critical thinking that occurs in supervision. In addition, two questions were added to collect data related to the number of hours spent in supervision and one's overall satisfaction with supervision. The two open ended questions were used to draw out more in-depth responses to what supervisees like and don't like about supervision in order to triangulate the quantitative findings with some more descriptive quotes. A link to the survey was sent in an email by an agency administrator to all agency employees (almost 1,100 employees) and 789 online surveys were submitted to ASU, a 72% response rate. The online survey was a self report instrument created and managed through SNAP software allowing for complete anonymity of respondents.

Findings:

Results of this study suggest that most respondents are satisfied with the supervision they currently receive. Regression analysis suggests that the quality of the relationship and the availability of the supervisor were significant predictors of satisfaction with supervision. Number of hours spent in supervision and demographic predictors such as the district one works and whether or not the worker is located in a rural or urban area were not significant predictors. Finally, the qualitative findings highlight the value workers find in quality supervision while unsatisfied supervisees were also quite descriptive of how unfair treatment, ineffective communication and lack of availability of their supervisor negatively impacted their job satisfaction.

Implications:

Implications of these findings suggest that while overall AZ DCYF can be pleased most of their workers are satisfied with supervision, almost 30% of the sample was not satisfied with the current supervision they receive and this may be impacting their job satisfaction, retention and even quality of their practice. In response, the agency implemented a series of three trainings to develop the practice of supervision at their agency. Post-test data will be collected to evaluate the effectiveness of this strategy once the training series is complete.