Exploring the Relationship of Client-Perpetrated Violence and Intent to Leave Among Child Welfare Workers

Background and Purpose:

Child welfare worker retention is an important factor for improving outcomes for at-risk children and their families within the child welfare system.  The nature of the job and the environment in which investigations and services take place put child welfare workers at risk for client-perpetrated violence.  Little is known about client-perpetrated violence in general and less in relation to turnover decisions. The current study provides prevalence data on client-perpetrated violence among a statewide sample of recently hired child welfare workers, and explores its relationship with work-related outcomes.

Methods:

This study uses data from a statewide longitudinal study investigating retention among child welfare workers.  Case managers and child protective investigators were recruited from a cohort of workers hired between September 2015 and August 2016 (n=1,238). Data analyzed here were collected at 6 months post-hire.

Client-perpetrated violence is measured by several dichotomous indicators grouped into types of violence experienced by workers: 1) verbal abuse (i.e., yelling, swearing), 2) verbal threats (i.e., harm, property damage), 3) threat with a weapon, and 4) physical assault. Workers completed scales on work-related self-efficacy and intent to remain, and were asked if they had seriously considered leaving their child welfare job. Frequencies, chi-square tests, t-tests, linear, and logistic regression were used to examine the relationship between the type of perpetrated violence and work-related outcomes.

Results: By 6 months into their positions, 67% of participants had been sworn at or yelled at, 33% were verbally threatened, 4% received property damage, 2% were threatened with a weapon, and 2% were physically assaulted. Chi square analyses indicated that being yelled at/sworn at (x²(1)=4.89, p=.03), receiving verbal threats (x² (1)=11.65, p =.001), experiencing damage to personal property (x² (1)=5.15, p=.01), and being threatened with a weapon x² (1)=8.1, p=.005) were related to giving serious consideration to leaving their job. Intent to remain in a child welfare position was significantly lower for workers who had been threatened with a weapon compared to those who had not ([t(999)=1.94, p=.05]. Work self-efficacy means were lower for those who had experienced being yelled at or sworn at [t(1019)=2.99, p= .003] or had been verbally threatened [t(725.79)=2.8, p = .004] compared to those who had not. Logistic regression analyses indicated that verbal assault was the only type of client-perpetrated violence which was a significant predictor of whether a child welfare workers seriously considering leaving the field of child welfare (p=.04) when other factors were controlled.

Conclusions and Implications: The findings from this study suggest that different types of client-perpetrated workplace violence occur early on for child welfare workers, and can influence worker intent to leave or remain employed in child welfare. These experiences may influence worker turnover as well as other work-related outcomes. Organizations may benefit from being attuned to early experiences of client-perpetrated violence and its impact on workers. Further research is needed to determine the influence of client-perpetrated violence on worker well-being and turnover decisions, over the course of a career.