Secondary Traumatic Stress and Intent to Stay at Child Welfare Agencies: The Moderating Effect of Job Functions Among Public Child Welfare Workers

Background and Purpose

Job retention of child welfare workers is a strong factor for ensuring the high-quality of services and achieving child and family outcomes. Previous studies have constantly shown that high exposure to Secondary Traumatic Stress (STS) reduces workers’ intent to stay at child welfare agencies, which is a valid proxy of actual job retention rates. However, there is little understanding of how the negative impact of STS on the intent to stay vary between different job functions. Investigators are responsible for assessing the allegations of child maltreatment, whereas caseworkers are responsible for managing ongoing services provided to children and families. They often experience different levels of frequency, intensity, and duration of contact with traumatized children and families. Thus, we hypothesize that different job functions may moderate the association between STS and the intent to stay.

Methods

This study analyzed online survey data collected from 953 public child welfare workers in a Midwestern state in 2018. They were asked to self-report their intent to stay at child welfare agencies. STS refers to psychological symptoms indirectly acquired through exposure to persons suffering from trauma, which was measured by the average score of 17 items rated on a five-point scale (Bride et al., 2004). A job function was a binary variable (investigators vs. caseworkers). Control variables included child welfare workers’ demographic and educational backgrounds, work-related characteristics, professional self-care, and organizational and supervisory supports. A series of multiple regression analyses were performed to examine the major hypotheses along with a follow-up test to probe the moderation effect using the PROCESS program in SPSS 24.

Results

Caseworkers (M = 2.30) reported a relatively higher level of STS as compared to investigators (M = 2.25). Multiple regression showed that STS was negatively associated with child welfare workers’ intent to stay (β = -.17, p < .001). Although the main effect of a job function was not significant, it moderated the association between STS and the intent to stay (β = .15, p < .05). More specifically, a probing analysis indicated that the negative impact of STS on the intent to stay was significant only for caseworkers, but not for investigators. Of control variables, organizational justice, emotional supervision, and professional self-care significantly increased the intent to stay.

Conclusions and Implications

Workers’ perceived STS was identified as a risk factor to decrease the intent to stay at child welfare agencies, especially for caseworkers. This finding suggests that the negative impact of STS may be more detrimental to caseworkers due to their long-term and cumulative exposure to the same traumatized children as compared to investigators who interact with them within the relatively short-term period. Child welfare agencies should develop trauma-informed policies and organizational supports targeted to the different patterns of STS by job functions. To do so, future research should explore a comprehensive mechanism that explains what organizational and individual factors prevent STS and then lead to better job retention. It is also important to examine how this mechanism can differ between specific job functions.