Comparing Perspectives of Organizational Culture, Social Capital and Implementation Supports Among Retained and Departed Practitioners

Background

At least one in five child welfare workers leave the field annually, and it’s estimated that 67% of turnover in is preventable. Lack of retention of workers causes financial strain on child serving organizations as they must continually recruit, hire, and train new workers. Meanwhile, retained workers are overburdened with increased cases due to staff shortages, which can make it virtually impossible to attend to all of the needs of children and families on their caseload or to engage in training and uptake of new practice models to enhance skills and practice. Most importantly, children and youth report a loss of trust and stability when worker turnover occurred.

The purpose of this study was to retrospectively examine feedback about organizational culture, climate, self-efficacy and implementation support from kinship and adoption navigators who are responsible for providing navigation and coordination services for kinship and adoptive families. We compared responses of navigators who were retained and departed to answer the research question: What are the differences among retained and departed staff related to their perceptions of organizational culture, climate, self-efficacy and implementation support activities?

Methods

This implementation study is part of a statewide type one hybrid CRT to assess the effectiveness of a kinship and adoption navigation program to support children and families. The evaluation team worked with program staff using the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research to identify relevant study constructs including organization culture, social capital and implementation outcomes of reach and fidelity. Navigators were surveyed using the Social Capital Scale , Learning Climate and Culture Stress subscales as well as project specific questions related to self-efficacy and implementation support activities. The survey was administered annually in 2021 and 2022 over a three-week period and 73% (n = 45) of navigators responded. In both years, results were analyzed using descriptive and bivariate statistics to understand differences among staff. This session will present an updated analysis of combined data to compare ratings among staff who were retained or departed by 2023.

Results

A total of 49% (n = 22) staff were retained between survey administrations and the updated analysis. Preliminary descriptive analyses demonstrated some changes in staff perceptions of organizational components over the two timepoints. For example, in 2021, navigators reported they disagreed that stress was high (2.04, n = 20); whereas in 2022, navigators slightly disagreed that stress and workload were high (M = 2.5, n = 26), which suggests an increase in perceived stress. In terms of social capital, navigators “strongly agreed” (M = 4.6, n = 20) in 2021 and 2022 (M = 4.6, n = 26) that work place relationships and trust were positive. Final analyses will answer the research question by comparing ratings among retained and departed staff at both timepoints.

Discussion

This study provides the opportunity to examine differences among retained and departed staff on recognized implementation constructs and consider opportunities to further strengthen the retention of frontline staff in child welfare.