Child Welfare Workers' Psychological Well-Being: The Role of Interprofessional Collaboration

Background: Child welfare workers often experience psychological distress in the workplace, such as Secondary Traumatic Stress (STS) and burnout, which can negatively affect their occupational health, retention, and quality of services. Inter-Professional Collaboration (IPC) has been proposed as an effective strategy for reducing workers’ stress and enhancing their well-being. However, potential mechanisms that explain these benefits of IPC remain unclear, particularly among child welfare workers. Drawing on social network theory, this study aims to examine whether time pressure and self-care may mediate the effect of IPC on child welfare workers’ STS and burnout.

Methods: This study analyzed the Comprehensive Organizational Health Assessment (COHA) survey data collected from child welfare workers in three states (N = 2469). IPC was measured by workers’ perceived quality of collaboration with service providers and court professionals. Time pressure was measured by their perceived lack of time to complete their jobs. Personal self-care was measured by workers’ engagement in self-care activities within their personal life, whereas professional self-care was assessed by their engagement in self-care activities within organizations. STS was measured by workers’ symptoms of STS acquired from interactions with traumatized children and families. Burnout was measured by workers’ symptoms of physical and psychological exhaustion. Path analysis was employed using Mplus 8.6 to examine multiple pathways through which IPC was associated with workers’ STS and burnout.

Results: Path analysis showed that IPC was associated directly with workers’ both STS (b = -.05, p < .05) and burnout (b = -07, p < .001). Furthermore, findings showed that time pressure and self-care activities significantly mediated the effect of IPC on workers’ STS and burnout. Specifically, IPC first decreased time pressure, next increased personal self-care, and finally decreased workers’ STS (b = -.004, 95% CI = -.007 – -.002) and burnout (b = -.004, 95% CI = -.006 – -.002). Similarly, professional self-care significantly mediated the association between IPC and workers’ burnout (b = -.013, 95% CI = -.023 – -.005). However, the effect of IPC on workers’ STS was not significantly mediated by professional self-care.

Conclusions: This study suggests multiple mechanisms through which IPC affects child welfare workers’ psychological distress. IPC can decrease workers’ STS and burnout by reducing time pressure and promoting engagement in personal and professional self-care activities. However, these mediation effects were more significant and stronger on burnout than STS. Social network theory provides plausible explanations for these results. IPC may help workers manage their job demands more efficiently through collaborative service coordination. Furthermore, IPC may allow them to gain information, access resources, and enhance mutual support to address their work-related concerns. Such benefits of IPC can reduce workers’ time pressure and augment self-care activities, ultimately contributing to their well-being and health. Therefore, child welfare organizations should develop organizational policies that support IPC with adequate resources, provide education and training to enhance workers’ skills for working effectively with other professionals toward common goals, and foster organizational environments that promote teamwork within and across professions. Additional implications for moving beyond self-care will be discussed.