Climate Change in Private Child Welfare Organizations

Agency-based design teams effectively address workforce issues in public child welfare agencies. This article presents findings from an adaptation of a design team intervention for private child welfare agencies. A longitudinal mixed-methodology design measures effects of the intervention and conditions of implementation. Pre–post surveys of workers (n = 137) and a comparison group (n = 153) measure climate, job satisfaction, perceptions of child welfare, and intent to leave. Statistically significant increases of 0.37 points on dimensions of organizational justice and support (justice: p = 0.01; support: p = 0.03) parallel the team’s perceived effect of their work—that it will make the organization more fair and accountable

Child welfare design teams: An intervention to improve workforce retention and facilitate organizational development

Workforce turnover in public child welfare is a national problem. Individual, supervisory, and organizational factors, individually and in combination, account for some of the turnover. Complex, comprehensive interventions are needed to address these several factors and their interactions. A research and development team is field testing one such intervention. The three-component intervention encompasses management consultations, capacity building for supervisors, and a cross-role, intra-agency design team (DT). DTs consist of representative workers from pilot child welfare systems. A social worker from outside the agency facilitates team problem solving focused on retention of workers. DT problem solving combines action research and learning. DTs and their facilitators rely on specially designed tools, protocols, and social work research as they address retention-related priorities. Intervention research findings as well as successful examples of retention-related problem solving indicate the DT intervention's potential contributions to social work education, research, and practice