Workforce Equity: Using a Critical Race Theory Lens in Child Welfare

Background and purpose:

Critical Race Theory holds that racism is an inherent, structural aspect of U.S. society.  As such, individuals targeted by racism experience the daily impact of racial injustice.  This is reflected in our child welfare system, where decades of research have documented the disproportional representation of children of color, especially Native American and African-American children, across the child welfare system. Efforts to address racial disparity in child welfare are underway in many localities and states across the U.S.

Central to this work are the people employed in child welfare: caseworkers, the supervisors who support their work, and the managers and leaders who drive organizational vision and mission. Yet there is little direct research connecting racial equity in child welfare to the workforce itself.  Racism is manifest in outcome disparities for children, youth and families – are there parallel disparities for the workforce? This is an important question as a diverse and culturally sensitive workforce is necessary to correct racial disparity within child welfare.

Methods:

This study uses data from a multi-state survey of public child welfare staff to explore racial differences in key workforce outcomes known to impact workforce retention and worker wellbeing.  A total of 2,693 child welfare staff in three states completed a baseline Comprehensive Organizational Health Assessment. In addition to demographic questions, respondents were asked about their perception of the agency’s psychological climate, their levels of stress and burnout, secondary traumatic stress, and intent to stay at the agency. Analysis using SPSS ver. 23 explored differences in mean scores between those who identify as White and those who selected a non-white identity.  This dichotomous approach of White and non-White allows an initial understanding of the degree to which white privilege is associated with higher levels of worker wellbeing.

Results:

Nearly 20% of the sample self-selected an other-than-White racial identity (n=538; 19.98%), including American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Black or African American, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Island, Latino/a and Multi-racial.  The remaining respondents (n=2,155, 80.02%) self-identified as White or Caucasian. A series of independent samples t-tests found statistically significant differences between these two groups on measures of interest including perception of the agency’s psychological climate (p=0.017, d=0.118); job stress (p=0.000, d=0.500); burnout (p=0.007, d=0.150); exposure to secondary traumatic stress (p=0.000, d=0.212); and intent to remain employed at the agency (p=0.000, d=0.309).  For each of these items, mean scores for White respondents showed a higher level of worker wellbeing.

Conclusions and Implications:

These findings suggest subtle but persistent differences in workforce outcomes for staff who identify as White compared to staff who do not.  Such results set a foundation for further analysis of these data to better understand the impact of racism on those who work in child welfare, a field known to struggle with persistent racial disparity in outcomes for children and families. In doing so, this work adds to the growing social work knowledge base on specific impacts of racism and helps answer the call to the profession to achieve racial equity.