Child Welfare Workers' Self-Reported Preparedness to Address Intimate Partner Violence Cases

Background and Purpose: Child welfare workers’ caseloads often include intimate partner violence (IPV), though many workers feel unprepared to handle these cases. In Florida, child welfare investigations are provided by the state, and services are privatized. Workers participate in preservice training by role: case manager (CM) or child protective investigator (CPI). This study examined whether or not differences exist in child welfare workers’ self-reported preparedness to handle cases with IPV based on their trainee role.

Methods: Data were drawn from wave four of the Florida Study of Professionals for Safe Families, a longitudinal study of the child welfare workforce (N=1,501). Participants were recruited in their preservice trainings and receive new surveys approximately every six months, regardless of their current employment. At wave four, participants had been out of preservice training for approximately 18 months and were included in the present analysis if they: 1) were working in child welfare in Florida; 2) were actively managing a caseload; and 3) reported ever working on cases that also involve IPV. Participants were asked: “Based on your child welfare pre-service training, how prepared do you feel you are to work on child welfare cases that also involve intimate partner violence?” Responses were dichotomized into somewhat prepared or less and mostly or completely prepared. We ran chi square analyses to detect differences in preparedness to work IPV cases by baseline role.

Results: The final analytic sample included 559 child welfare workers who were CMs (54.4%) or CPIs (45.6%). Overall, approximately half of the participants (48.7%, n=272) reported being mostly or completely prepared to work on cases that involve IPV, with a significant difference by role, χ²(1, 559)=16.52, p<.001. Specifically, 58.0% of CPIs reported feeling mostly or completely prepared, compared to 40.8% of CMs. Additionally, maltreatment investigations are conducted by the state (Florida Department of Children and Families) or sub-contracted to civilian members of a county sheriff’s office.  As such, we looked at differences within the CPIs. Sheriffs’ offices CPIs were significantly more likely to feel mostly or complete prepared to handle IPV cases (80.0%) than those employed by DCF (49.7%), χ²(1, 255)=19.11, p<.001.

Conclusions and Implications: Child welfare workers trained to complete investigations report they feel significantly more prepared to handle IPV cases than those trained in case management. CMs are providing longer-term services for children and families and undoubtedly face families with IPV on their caseloads. Given that fewer than half of CMs feel mostly or completely prepared to respond to these families, there is a need to assess the quantity and quality of IPV training content for CMs. Moreover, sheriffs’ offices CPIs felt most prepared for IPV cases compared to the other roles, which might indicate that an interdisciplinary approach to IPV training (i.e., with law enforcement) enhances preparedness.