RE: measuring stress levels child welfare workers (who cares!)

["Niki Delson" <niki@xxxxxxxxx>]

As a trainer of CPS workers in CA, I see the issue somewhat differently. I
find an incredible resistance to look at the research. Social workers as a
group want to make clinical judgments, very often based in myth and clinical
lore rather than guided by research. Workers have told us, " we don't want
to hear the statistics, or the citations, just tell us how to do it." When
confronted with bias in decision making, rather than look at their decision
making process, they frequently become defensive. When research does not
support current practice, they do not want to engage in a process of
challenging "the way it has always been done" but complain about supervisors
not letting them, administration not letting them, public pressure not
letting them - anything but taking personal responsibility for change. Last
year  NASW published an article in a newsletter stating that social work as
a profession was becoming marginalized because we are not allowing research
to guide our practice. Stress and burnout is an issue, but personal
responsibility is too. I remember a class in which social workers went on
and on about how impotent they felt - (they sounded like battered women -
except they had far more choices) Whenever anyone in the class suggested a
course of action that would involve some personal courage, or commitment to
do anything other than whine about it, they were met with such statements as
" Oh, but my supervisor would become very angry if I did that." Social
worker attitudes do impact how they treat clients, but if they are unwilling
to take risks, to implement change, to show courage in the face of community
pressure, how can they expect their clients to make the massive changes we
demand with far fewer resources than we have.

***************************************************************************
 Niki Delson at Delson-Kokish Associates, P.O. Box 476, Trinidad, CA 95570
        Clinical and Forensic Evaluations, Consultation & Training
                 (707)677-3181-voice   (707)677-0187-fax
             niki@delko.net-email    www.northcoast.com/~dka
***************************************************************************


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-CHILD-MALTREATMENT-RESEARCH-L@cornell.edu
[mailto:owner-CHILD-MALTREATMENT-RESEARCH-L@cornell.edu]On Behalf Of
revoredux
Sent: Friday, March 16, 2001 9:28 AM
To: Child Maltreatment Researchers
Subject: Re: measuring stress levels child welfare workers (who cares!)



I could not agree more with Vernon Carter's comments. The primary rationale
for looking at stress levels in CPS workers is to improve service to
children and families.
This certainly is my position as  a front line social worker in a large
agency, union shop steward and community member.

I have been researching the area of stress related illness and the
relationship to attrition,  from an employer , union and occupational helath
and safety viewpoint. I
believe (and materials support) that  it is critical for all parties to
recognize that the high attrition rates amongst CPS workers (these are
reasonably well documented in
several jurisdictions) is creating risk for children. Failure to address
stress and stress related illnesses also creates liability for employers (a
number have been
successfully sued in both North American and European jurisdictions by
employees.) Much of the stress of the work emerges, not from the challenges
of families and
children in distress, but from the bureaucratic requirements of highly
politicized systems in tandem with high caseloads and staff shortages.

This stress leads to senior and qualified workers leaving or moving
laterally outside of child welfare. This results in a deskilling of CPS and
exacerbates the poor quality
of the work.  This translates into children remaining at risk, families
without appropriate service and, eventually, loss of custody and, in the
worst cases--child injury
and death.

All concerned with the welfare of children should be alarmed at  the trend
in many jurisdictions to replace skilled,  hard-to-retain BSW's and MSW's
with less relevant
qualifications (such as teaching and child and youth care degrees/diplomas.)
While these degrees have their merits there is  generally little or no
training relevant to
CPS practise (First Nations practise, anti-oppressive stances, ecological
perspectives, ADP, child interview training, radical practise etc etc.)

Social work is at risk of  losing its symbiotic relationship to child
welfare. This is both to the detriment of our professsion as well as to the
detriment children and
families. Many locales are hiring child protection "technicians" with
varying qualifications who slavishly apply whatever rationalization
mechanism their agencies utilize.
Sound SW judgement stemming from practise experience is out the window.
Actuarial assessment tools are in....

So an examination of stress as part of an effort to retain a skilled
workforce is entirely justified and not discussed enough, in my view. It is
a legitimate  part of any
discussion concerned with how best to prevent the maltreatment of children.


3/15/01 10:08:18 PM, "vernon brooks carter" <vbrooks@nh.ultranet.com> wrote:

>Mr. Murray - I respond as a CPSW and a researcher. I would assert that the
>persons most harmed by child welfare workers experiencing high levels of
>stress are the children and families they serve. I was just reading Ner
>Littner's(1956) "Some Traumatic Effects of Separation and Placement" and he
>discussed how children in placement frequently relive their original
>separation all over again when a worker goes on vacation, is late or
cancels
>an appointment (p.31). John Pardeck (1983) found that one of the variables
>that was most positively associated with children experiencing multiple
>placements was worker turnover. Finally, it a major goal of many CPSWs to
>maintain a child safely in their home or if they are in foster care to
>safely reunify children with their families. It is a difficult task to
>accomplish safely for stressed or new workers.
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "john murray" <psychometre@hotmail.com>
>To: "Child Maltreatment Researchers"
><CHILD-MALTREATMENT-RESEARCH-L@cornell.edu>
>Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2001 2:31 AM
>Subject: measuring stress levels child welfare workers (who cares!)
>
>
>> Can I suggest that she do something a little more interesting and
>important,
>> this topic is exhausted, and because it is natural for people to put
their
>> best interests first (quite despite a duty of care)done done done done
>done,
>>
>> and who gives a stuff- child welfare workers are usually a number of
>things:
>>
>> 1. university educated
>> 2. adult
>> 3. usually repressented by a union or association
>> 4. able to organise
>> 5. covered by all sorts of legislation, Occupational Health and
>   Safety -
>> anti discrimination blah blah blah etc
>> 6. paid for what they do
>> 7. able to leave the environment that stresses them for up to 16 hours
>a
>> day
>> 8. very quick to take the provissions of stress or burn out leave
>> 9. able to move on to other arenas when it all gets to much.
>> 10. alledged to be competant
>> 11. allowed to take holidays
>> 12. over pimples and hormonal shifts (alledgedly)
>>
>> now compare this list to the kids!
>> I'm sure they'd love some stress/burn out leave, get away from it 18
hours
>a
>> day (oh thats why so many are drug users!) have the oportunity of getting
>a
>> uni edu' (I know this from looking back), be able to organise, and have
>> people who are really really actually real;ly are interested in their
(the
>> kids) best interests to protect them etc etc etc, you know- like a union
>>
>> don't see too much of this type of research but hell I'm inundated with
>all
>> the crappy surveys about the poor old staff and how hard it is for them.
>We
>> even had one recently in NSW that asked service providers about how good
>the
>> Department of Community Services was at providing family services- not
one
>> family was asked- not one child was asked, not one person who had been
>> through it and lived was asked.
>>
>> If she still wants to pursue this stuff she can approach :
>> `````````
>> `````````
>>
>>
http://www.ncoss.org.au/bookshelf/submissions/download/staffsur.pdfWanted:
>A
>> Genuine Partnership
>> The DOCS Ministerial taskforce has released the results of a 1998 survey
>of
>> DOCS staff. The six top priority issues
>>      identified by the survey were:
>>         1.more substitute/respite care places
>>         2.improve staff retention
>>         3.staff want to feel more valued by DOCS
>>         4.better communication
>>         5.better solutions locally
>>         6.better equipment and technology.
>>
>> `````````
>> ``````````
>> http://www.ncoss.org.au/bookshelf/submissions/download/docs_survey.pdf
>> A report on the survey, conducted by NCOSS, of community based agencies
>> providing direct services to Department of Community Services clients.
>>
>> ````````
>> ```````
>> http://www.ncoss.org.au/bookshelf/submissions/s-conrev.html
>> Response to the Consultation Review Discussion Paper
>>
>> In late 1994, the NSW Department of Community Services adopted,
supposedly
>> as part of its decision making processes, a Consultation Protocol. Since
>> then the community sector has felt that the neither consultation was
>> seriously taken up by the department, nor that the department's
>> decision-making processes resulted in better services. Now the protocol
is
>> being reviewed in a climate of cost-cutting and NCOSS has substantial
>> concerns. This submission is a response to a departmental discussion
paper
>>
>>
>>
>> ``````
>> `````
>> A NEW PUBLICATION FROM ACWA AND UWS NEPEAN-
>> http://www.acwa.asn.au/acwa/publications/reports/plumber.html
>>
>> "I Always say I'm a Plumber: Significant factors in job satisfaction,
>staff
>> morale and retention in children's welfare
>> agencies"
>>
>> The relationships between the quality of service provision in community
>> organisations, the quality of staff training and development and job
>> retention, job satisfaction and staff morale and organisational
structures
>> and cultures remain largely unexplored. This pilot project jointly
>conducted
>> by the Association of Childrens Welfare Agencies (ACWA) and the
Designated
>> Research Group, Workplace Learning and Organisational Development of the
>> University of Western Sydney,
>>                     Nepean (DRG) aimed to establish some preliminary
>> findings of the factors that impact on job satisfaction, staff morale and
>> staff retention in child welfare service organisations in the Penrith
>> region. Three sites were selected for the study - one government
>department
>> and a large and small non-government organisation.
>>
>>                     The study provides a wealth of data including
>> significant preliminary indications that job satisfaction is strongly
>linked
>> to intrinsic aspects of the work itself; Dissatisfaction with the job is
>> strongly linked to organisational constraints; There is a strong link
>> between dissatisfaction and policies and practices that are workload
>driven
>> and not client driven; Workers are frustrated and personally demoralised
>by
>> having to make choices about who to provide service to based on resource
>> considerations and not on client need; Strong team identification emerged
>as
>> a driving force counterbalancing organisational constraints, and to some
>> degree intrinsic aspects of the work itself. All workers draw strength in
>> the workplace  from other team members and experience a sense of
isolation
>> at a personal and organisational level when members of the team are away.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ORDER FORM - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
>>
>> Print this form, fill it in and send or fax to the address below.
>>
>> Please send me . . . . . . . . copies of "I Always say I'm a Plumber" @
>$15
>> ea. (incl P&P).
>>
>> Name:
>>
>> Organisation:
>>
>> Address:
>>
>> Phone:
>>
>> Fax:
>>
>> I enclose cheque/money order for $ .................... as payment or
>Please
>> charge to:
>>
>> ( ) Bankcard
>> ( ) Visa
>> ( ) Mastercard
>> ( ) Amex
>>
>> Credit card number:
>>
>> I_ I_ I_ I_ I I_ I_ I_ I_ I I_ I_ I_ I_ I I_ I_ I_ I_ I
>>
>>
>>
>> Cardholder's Name:
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>>
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>>
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>>
>>
>> Please make cheques payable to ACWA and return to:
>>
>> Association of Childrens Welfare Agencies
>> Level 2
>> Central Square
>> Cnr Castlereagh & Hay Streets
>> Sydney 2000
>> Fax: 02 281 8827
>>
>> Enquiries to Eric Scott 02 9281 8822 or email eric@acwa.asn.au
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> From: "\"Richard Carrière et Louise Picard\" @"
>> <picard.carriere@sympatico.ca>
>> Reply-To: picard.carriere@sympatico.ca
>> To: Child Maltreatment Researchers
>> <CHILD-MALTREATMENT-RESEARCH-L@cornell.edu>
>> Subject: measuring the stress level of those working in child welfare
>> Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2001 22:02:14 -0500
>>
>> I have a student who is interested in studying the stress level
>> experienced by child welfare workers. Can anyone suggest standardised
>> measures of stress that she could use.
>> Secondly, I suspect that this topic may have been covered in the past.
>> How do I access the archives of this listserver?
>>
>> Richard Carrière
>>
>>
>> _________________________________________________________________________
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