Workforce

The Florida Institute for Child Welfare (Institute) is actively working to address the needs of child welfare workers through an examination of effective recruitment and improved retention of such professionals. Among child welfare professionals, burnout and stress create high turnover rates ranging from 20 percent to 50 percent within the first three years of employment (Shelbe, Radey, & Panish, 2017). Further findings from the Institute identified that child welfare caseworkers reported steady levels of stress, burnout, and declines in physical and emotional well-being beginning immediately after assuming caseload responsibilities (Florida Study of Professionals for Safe Families, 2020). Case worker turnover rates contribute to delays in placements, permanency for children in the welfare system, and rising caseloads. With dependency case managers and child protective investigators burning out and leaving the workforce, child welfare professionals are faced with increased workloads and significant overtime resulting in individuals feeling overworked and undervalued.

The Institute designed an approach to improve child safety, permanency, and well-being by promoting workforce stability and satisfaction. The Institute is developing and providing training to support and nurture development in both students and professionals to strengthen the current and future workforce. The Florida Study of Professionals for Safe Families conducted by the Institute funded longitudinal examination of the state's child welfare workforce and serves as the cornerstone for a multi-faceted approach to reinvigorate the child welfare workforce. The Institute's GROW Center is the flagship program for developing a continuum of learning opportunities and ongoing support for college students, recently trained personnel, and middle and upper management positions working in child welfare agencies. The study's co-principal investigators and Institute affiliates, Drs. Dina Wilke, and Melissa Radey (Florida State University) are continuing to explore the data and work with our GROW Center team to provide data-informed recommendations for programming. The GROW Center's goal is to enhance learning and build a capacity towards meaningful and systemic change within the statewide child welfare workforce.

In approaching the need for workforce innovation, the Institute conducted evaluations and research examining the factors that must be addressed to create an improved child welfare system. The Institute conducted a phased evaluation of the Department of Children and Families' (DCF) Child Welfare Pre- and In-service Training, to assess the readiness of dependency case managers and child protective investigators to begin job responsibilities. This evaluation found that the level of training given did not facilitate the knowledge acquisition and skill development for new and current child welfare professionals. The Institute is collaborating with the DCF training department to revitalize the pre-service training to include a dynamic hybrid approach of both e-learning and in-person training that includes problem-based learning, interactive activities. Coaching will be incorporated throughout in-service training to better support new workers as they learn to apply knowledge learned in the classroom to work in the field.