IASWR Update

The Institute for the Advancement of Social Work Research (IASWR) has a threefold mission: (1) To build the knowledge base for the social work profession through developing social work researchers and research capacity; (2) to promote the use of research to improve practice, program development, and policy; and (3) to strengthen the voice of the profession in public policy determinations by representing the profession within the national scientific community. IASWR, in collaboration with the School of Social Work at the University of Maryland, and with support from the Annie E. Casey Foundation's Human Services Workforce Initiative, launched an initiative in 2003 that addresses all three goals of IASWR's mission.

The major activities that the Casey Foundation supported were the undertaking of a systematic review of research on staff retention in child welfare and the convening of researchers, practitioners, and policy makers to examine needs for further research and policy enhancements. The results of the systematic review are captured in a report, Factors Influencing Retention of Child Welfare Staff: A Systematic Review of Research, that is available on the IASWR website (www.iaswresarch.org). The review initially identified 154 articles and reports since 1974 on retention and child welfare workforce issues. After careful review this was narrowed to 25 specific studies that examined research with retention or turnover as the dependent variable. The findings indicate that there are specific personal and organizational conditions that impact retention. The only specific child welfare workforce retention strategy for which we identified a body of research related to the impact of Title IV-E educational partnerships on retention.

Drawn from the report's conclusions, the following is an overview of the findings. A synthesis of the qualitative findings and a careful review and comparison of the inferences that can be drawn from the bivariate and multivariate analysis reinforced the complexity of addressing retention in child welfare agencies. Figure 1 depicts these factors that influence retention. We can infer that there are ranges of personal and organizational factors that can positively influence retention of staff.

Professional commitment and level of education are the most consistent personal characteristics, and supervisory support and workload/caseload are the most consistent organizational factors identified in the research. The attributes of burnout, especially emotional exhaustion, and role overload/conflict and stress are negative factors that lessen retention and increase the likelihood of turnover. While emotional exhaustion, stress, and overload may be characteristics of the worker, those attributes are often due to the work environment.

Title IV-E preparation serves as a "value-added" for retention strategies, as IV-E initiatives reinforce the personal factors that support retention by recruiting participants who are committed to the profession and to serving children and families. The Title IV-E participants in the studies in this review often already had tenure (experience) in the agency, had prerequisite education (through acquisition of a BSW or MSW degree), and demonstrated efficacy. In addition, by offering this educational enhancement opportunity, the agency may be demonstrating that it supports and values its employees by providing the incentive to obtain an advanced degree, which may also open up new opportunities for promotion and increased salary.

In comparing Title IV-E graduates, organizational factors, especially supervision, distinguish between those who stay and those who leave or intend to leave. While intent to leave is considered to be a proxy for those who actually leave, a greater number of child welfare workers are likely to express intent to leave than do in fact leave.

Despite the great opportunity provided through Title IV-E training funds, few if any states are able to prepare enough child welfare workers through this mechanism for it to be the only recruitment and retention strategy. In addition, the great variation across Title IV-E partnership models, and the fact that the programs change and evolve or devolve as state administrations change, makes it difficult to obtain a complete picture of what is happening nationally. Furthermore, as we see from these studies, there is great variation in how the studies were designed and implemented. There is also diversity in the populations examined, differences in how the states structure their child welfare service delivery, and differing minimum qualifications for child welfare staff positions. All this variation impacts how the findings of these studies can be interpreted and compared.

To enhance the accessibility of the review findings to policy makers and specific audiences, IASWR developed three research briefs. IASWR Research Brief 1, Retaining Competent Child Welfare Workers: Lessons from Research, provides an overview of the 25 studies included in the review and the conclusions drawn from that. IASWR Research Brief 2, Professional Education for Child Welfare Practice: Improving Retention in Public Child Welfare Agencies, details the findings and implications of the seven studies that specifically looked at the impact of Title IV-E educational partnerships on retention in child welfare. IASWR Research Brief 3, Understanding Retention in Child Welfare: Suggestions for Further Research and Evaluation, provides specific recommendations and guidance for future research studies on recruitment and retention.

On October 27, 2005, IASWR convened a small meeting that brought together university and state representatives involved with child welfare university/agency partnerships and representative of national organizations that are involved in a child welfare workforce policy workgroup convened by the Children's Defense Fund and Children's Rights. The meeting provided a venue to better acquaint the national-level actors with recruitment and retention initiatives under way in states, to provide the state-level actors with an opportunity to comment on emerging workforce improvement policy proposals, to address the value to the field of the availability of the Title IV-E training entitlement and Title IV-B section 426 discretionary training grants to undertake workforce improvement strategies, and to address the need for more targeted and rigorous research and evaluation efforts, including those that track the career trajectories of students supported with Title IV-E funds.

For more information and to access the retention report and briefs, including detailed descriptions of the 25 studies, specific information on the seven studies that examined Title IV-E outcomes, and recommendations for future research, visit the IASWR Web site at www.iaswresearch.org.