Assessing the Impact of Childhood Maltreatment History and Potential Risk and Protective Factors on Psychological Distress Among Newly-Hired Frontline Child Welfare Workers

Background and Purpose: Frontline child welfare (CW) workers face numerous threats to mental health that include secondary trauma, burnout, and compassion fatigue—all of which are linked to poor client outcomes and high agency turnover. Notably, similar threats are found in helping professionals with a history of childhood trauma. Despite this, little research specifically examines how CW workers with a history of childhood maltreatment fare when entering the field. This presentation addresses three research questions about newly-hired frontline CW workers: (1) What is the impact of CW work on psychological distress over time?, (2) Is a history of childhood maltreatment associated with psychological distress?, and (3) Do individual characteristics, coping, social support, and workplace factors influence psychological distress? 

Methods: Data for this project were analyzed from the first two waves of The Florida Study of Professionals for Safe Families (FSPSF), a longitudinal study of newly-hired frontline CW workers. Participants were recruited during pre-service trainings across the state of Florida. Surveys were administered online. Participants were included if they remained employed in CW at wave two, approximately six months into employment. The sample (n=930) consisted of 521 case managers and 409 child protective investigators. Participants were overwhelmingly female (85%) and predominantly identified as White (55%) and Black (35%). The mean age was 31 (SD= 9.3). About 40% reported a childhood maltreatment history.  

Results: Overall, mean scores for psychological distress increased by 47% from baseline to wave two (t=-21.81, p<.001). Additionally, workers with a maltreatment history scored higher at baseline (t=-6.2, p<.001) and at wave two (t=-4.37, p=.002) on psychological distress than those without a maltreatment history. A hierarchical linear regression was used to predict psychological distress; specifically, individual characteristics, coping, social support, and workplace factors were used as independent variables, while controlling for baseline levels of psychological distress. The final model had an adjusted r² of .395, and the following variables were statistically significant: age (b=-.81, p<.001), emotion-oriented coping (b=.93, p=.003), avoidance-oriented coping (b=.72, p<.02), social support from family/friends (b=-.86, p=.005), social support from coworkers (b=-.41, p=.05), work self-efficacy (b=-.21, p<.001), and work stress (b=.39, p<.001), althought not childhood maltreatment history. 

Conclusions and Implications: These findings indicate that all CW workers experienced increased psychological distress at just six months on the job, with greater levels evident among those with childhood maltreatment histories. However, given the regression findings, if having a history of childhood maltreatment impacts the psychological distress of CW workers, it does not appear to manifest by the 6-month mark of employment. This will be important to monitor over time. Further, the positive associations of emotion- and avoidance-oriented coping and the negative associations of social support and work-self-efficacy on psychological distress point to the importance of effective mentorship and supervision in the early tenure of CW workers. These findings also highlight the need to emphasize self-care, stress management, and positive coping and other protective factors at the formative stages of early employment.