How Does Professional Education Impact the Job Outlook of Public Child Welfare Workers?

Abstract

The objective of this study was to examine how public child welfare employees perceive their graduate social work education, whether they use the knowledge and skills gained, their work satisfaction, and their future plans. It was designed to examine the experiences of the New York City Administration on Children's Services (ACS) employees who were participants in the Professional Development Program and received support to study for their master's degrees in social work. The total number of respondents surveyed was 153, the vast majority of whom were people of color. In considering their motives for attending graduate school, 96 percent emphasized their desire to serve children and families better. These graduates were very positive about their academic and field experiences, with almost all saying they would recommend MSW training to others. There was a constant progression in their perceived knowledge and skill level over time. They expressed a mid-level of satisfaction with their current jobs, but higher satisfaction with the nature of the work itself. It was striking to note the respondents' attitudes about remaining employed at ACS. Only 13 percent of those who responded said they planned to leave within the next two years Almost a third (32.6%) said they thought they'd stay at least 5-9 years, and 39.8 percent said they would probably stay 10 years or longer. Satisfaction with the nature of the work and pay were the two strongest predictors of the length of time respondents planned to stay at ACS. These are important findings because they demonstrate that public investment in MSW education can have significant pay-off by increasing the knowledge and skills of public child welfare workers and encouraging long-term commitment to the work.     

Working for the Welfare of the Dai People

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Exploring Child Welfare Workers’ Experiences with Neglect Cases: A Qualitative Study

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Somebody’s Gotta Be There for These Kids: Importance of Service Orientation for Sustaining Public Child Welfare Workers

Research has long indicated that both employees’ perceptions of external support and their own dispositional factors tend to predict satisfaction, intent to stay, and retention. However, the dispositional factor of service orientation has received minimal attention in child welfare or social work research. This article furthers the research on service orientation by utilizing quantitative surveys to test relationships between service orientation and key organizational variables and then exploring qualitative results to gain a more nuanced perspective on how service orientation inhabits the work-related experiences of study participants and its relation to worker retention projections in the field of child welfare.     

Misery： The Price of Social Welfare？

I’VE always tried to be a happy person, but I’m now considering creating a Misery Index, to measure which countries have the least successful social welfare packages. My problem is that misery is a state of mind which is not readily measurable in terms of empirical data. Perhaps I will conclude that I will just have to assess relative misery by     

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Beijing Children''''s Welfare Institute

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China Welfare Institute at 60

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“I could not have made it without them”: Examining Trainee Cohort Perspectives on MSW Education for Public Child Welfare

This article reports findings from an evaluation of an MSW child welfare training program focused on increasing retention of knowledgeable, competent and experienced child protective service workers. From qualitative data gathered as part of the process evaluation, we found the cohort effect to be the most salient factor participants experienced as contributing to their successful program completion and their 100% retention rate. Analysis of the cohort effect yielded five themes instrumental in participants' individual and collective success: mutual support, empowerment, belief in self and their finding of a home base which ultimately helped them to launch their professional selves.     

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Since the beginning of the new century, the United Nations Mil- lennium Summit and the Special Session of the UN General Assembly on Children wereconvened in 2000 and 2002 respectively. In 2003, the 6th East Asia and Pacific Min- isterial Consultation on Children was held. The above meetings set global and region- al goals for social and child development. In recent years, in accordance with the spirit of the United Nations and regional conferences as well as the global and regional ac…     

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