A Profile of Child Welfare Workers in Ontario: Workforce Change between 1993 and 2013

Background: The child welfare system in Ontario, Canada is guided by the overarching goals of promoting child safety.  This system is comprised of many moving parts, including government, organizations, and staff, all of whom are guided by legislation and policies. Concerns around the child welfare system’s functioning have resulted in system change, which makes child welfare work difficult.  Even though these workers are arguably the most important piece of the system, there is a gap in the literature and we know little about them as a whole, nor do we know how this workforce has changed over time.  This study will examine the profile of Ontario child welfare workers between 1993 and 2013, and address the questions: How has the profile of child welfare workers changed over the past twenty years in Ontario?  Has the profile of child welfare workers changed in conjunction with child welfare landscape and child welfare system needs?  

Inherent in examining the profile of workers are several assumptions, including workers’ influence over the process, child/family outcomes, that the workforce is systematically developed, and that if a system needs change, the skills and knowledge of the workers change accordingly.

Methods: Secondary data analysis of the Ontario Incidence Studies (OIS; 1993, 1998, 2003, 2008, 2013) will be used to answer the research questions.  The OIS sample is drawn in three stages; representative sample of child welfare organizations across Ontario, cases sampled over a three-month time period, and lastly, investigated children who met inclusion criteria were identified.  During the data collection process, workers were invited to participate in a survey aimed at collecting information about the child welfare workers.  Worker information collected includes education level and field, age, primary language, ethnicity, years of experience, caseload, and trainings attended within the prior year.  Sample sizes vary between cycles (1993: N=121; 1998: N=261; 2003: N=352; 2008: N=506; 2013: N=503).   

Results: ANOVA tests indicate a significant effect of caseload on position over all OIS cycles.  Conversely, there is no significant caseload effect on experience, such that there are little differences between caseload size and time spent in child welfare.  ANOVA and t-tests do not illustrate any particular stable relationship pattern between caseload and education field, type, or level, although social work seems to be the preferred education in Ontario.  However, there is no relationship between training and education, or training and position. Training and experience were significantly related over every cycle.  Consistently, the amount of training increased for each experience category increase.  All results and post-hoc test findings will be discussed.

Implications: Findings suggest that the workforce has changed over time.  In some areas workforce change has followed the literature, and systematic change is evidence.  However, in other areas there seems to be unintended consequences of legislation changes, yet little impact to the workforce.  Further, underlying workforce professional development processes are unclear and require disentanglement.  This study builds the literature in its ability to provide a profile of workers over time and how they change with and against the system.