Exploration of Workforce Well-Being and Trauma-Informed Organizational Practices in Child Welfare Agencies

Background and Purpose:

Scholars have identified the need to address child welfare workforce well-being from a multi-level perspective that incorporates organizational interventions (Lizano et al., 2021; Turley et al., 2022). Yet, this scholarly area is relatively new with few empirical studies. Within the context of a university-agency partnership that aimed to address workforce well-being, we developed an exploratory study on of the relationship between individual well-being and organizational practices that are informed by secondary traumatic stress (STS) (Sprang et al., 2017). Specifically, our research questions asked: (1) Do assessments of STS-informed organizational practices vary by type of position? (2) Is better workforce well-being associated with greater use of STS-informed organizational practices?

Method:

This study used data from a statewide online survey of child welfare professionals in a Midwestern state in 2022 and 2023, comprising direct staff and supervisors (N=919). The survey included the Professional Quality of Life scale (CVT, 2019) with three well-being subscales for STS, burnout, and compassion satisfaction. Additionally, the STS-informed organizational assessment (STSI-OA) (Sprang et al., 2017) provided scores for three types of organizational practices: resilience-building, safety-related, and policies. Multiple linear regressions were applied to examine whether organizational practices differed for caseworkers versus supervisors and whether there was a relationship between staff well-being and organizational practices. All analyses included demographic variables as covariates and used full-information maximum likelihood to address missing data in regression models.

Results:

Participants were employed in public and private agencies as direct staff (75%) and supervisors (25%). Most participants were women (89%), white (82%), had a 4-year degree (54%), not licensed (68%), and had 4+ years of experience (30%). We found no statistically significant difference between direct staff and supervisors on any of the well-being items. Regarding the second research question, we found organizational resilience-building was associated with reduced STS (b=-0.23, p=0.000) and burnout (b=-0.42, p=0.000) and increased compassion satisfaction (b=0.49, p=0.000). Similarly, organizational safety practices were related to reduced STS (b=-0.21, p=0.000) and burnout (b=-0.39, p=0.000) and increased compassion satisfaction (b=0.39, p=0.000). Lastly, organizational leadership practices were associated with reduced STS (b=-0.20, p=0.000) and burnout (b=-0.30, p=0.000) and increased compassion satisfaction (b=0.31, p=0.000).

Implications/Conclusion:

This study’s results suggest a connection between trauma-informed organizational practices and child welfare professionals’ well-being. Thus, as suggested by others’ conceptual frameworks (Lizano et al, 202 1) and empirical studies (Whitt-Woosley & Sprang, 2023), interventions to promote workforce well-being should consider multi-level interventions rather than a singular focus on individual-level strategies. Future research is also needed to replicate these results across diverse samples and child welfare jurisdictions. Additionally, intervention and implementation research can provide the necessary evidence to understand which specific organizational strategies may be most feasible, effective, and equitable in the dynamic and challenging setting of child welfare.