Radey Melissa, Wilke Dina J
College of Social Work, Florida State University, 296 Champions Way, Tallahassee, FL 32303-2570 USA.
Child Adolesc Social Work J. 2023;40(1):57-69. doi: 10.1007/s10560-021-00762-z. Epub 2021 May 4.
Child welfare workers typically face strict deadlines, limited training periods, high caseloads, and understaffing. These high-demand positions often coupled with few organizational or supervisory supports contribute to decreased worker well-being and low retention. Informed by the Job Demands-Resources model, we examined common demand-resource sub-groups among recently-hired child welfare workers and how sub-group membership contributed to agency retention. This study used data from the Florida Study of Professionals for Safe Families (FSPSF), a four-year, longitudinal cohort study of child welfare workers hired in 2015-16 ( = 912). We used a three-step Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) with logistic regression to identify profiles of workers based on demand and support levels at 6 months to predict agency retention 12 months later. Findings resulted in five profiles: floundering, surviving through supervisor, surviving through role, surviving through supports, and thriving. Profile distributions indicated both demands and supports were independently important for retention. Each profile had higher odds of staying at the agency compared to the floundering profile, those floundering in role and support (ORs = 2.08-7.68). Those in the thriving profile, thriving in role and support, had higher odds of staying when compared to each other profile (ORs = 2.12-7.68). Findings identify that demands and supports operate in an additive way to promote retention and suggest that agencies can address individual aspects of workers' role and support challenges to improve retention without requiring a single approach to combat workload and environment simultaneously.
儿童福利工作者通常面临严格的期限、有限的培训期、高工作量以及人员不足的问题。这些高要求的职位往往伴随着很少的组织或监督支持，这导致工作者的幸福感下降和留存率低。基于工作需求-资源模型，我们研究了新雇佣的儿童福利工作者中常见的需求-资源子群体，以及子群体成员身份如何影响机构留存率。本研究使用了来自佛罗里达州安全家庭专业人员研究（FSPSF）的数据，这是一项对2015 - 16年雇佣的儿童福利工作者进行的为期四年的纵向队列研究（n = 912）。我们采用三步潜在剖面分析（LPA）和逻辑回归，根据6个月时的需求和支持水平确定工作者的剖面，以预测12个月后的机构留存率。研究结果产生了五个剖面：挣扎型、通过上级支持存活型、通过角色存活型、通过支持存活型和蓬勃发展型。剖面分布表明，需求和支持对留存率都具有独立的重要性。与挣扎型、在角色和支持方面挣扎的人相比，每个剖面留在机构的几率更高（优势比 = 2.08 - 7.68）。与其他每个剖面相比，处于蓬勃发展剖面、在角色和支持方面蓬勃发展的人留在机构的几率更高（优势比 = 2.12 - 7.68）。研究结果表明，需求和支持以累加的方式促进留存率，并表明机构可以解决工作者角色和支持挑战的各个方面，以提高留存率，而无需采用单一方法同时应对工作量和工作环境问题。
