Resources

• Factors Influencing Retention of Child Welfare Staff: A Systematic Review of Research
  This study, undertaken in collaboration by the Institute for the Advancement of Social Work Research and the University of Maryland School of Social Work, examined the personal and organizational conditions and strategies that impact retention. Also available at this site are three issue briefs:
  • Retaining Competent Child Welfare Workers: Lessons from Research
  • Professional Education for Child Welfare Practice: Improving Retention in Public Child Welfare Agencies
  • Understanding Retention in Child Welfare: Suggestions for Further Research and Evaluation

• Professional Development
  This issue of The Evaluation Exchange from the Harvard Family Research Project focuses on evaluating professional development across a range of fields, including after school and youth development, education, child care, and child welfare. The issue features innovative methods in professional development, conceptual frameworks and practical tools for evaluating professional development, links between professional development and program quality, and the role of organizational contexts in supporting professional development and positive outcomes.

• Improving Social Service Program, Training, and Technical Assistance Information Would Help Address Long-standing Service-Level and Workforce Challenges
  In response to a survey by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, states identified three primary challenges as most important to resolve to improve outcomes for children under their supervision: providing an adequate level of services for children and families, recruiting and retaining caseworkers, and finding appropriate homes for certain children. State officials also identified three challenges of increasing concern over the next 5 years: children's growing exposure to illegal drugs, increased demand to provide services for children with special needs, and changing demographic trends or cultural sensitivities in providing services for some groups of children in the states' child welfare systems. This report includes GAO recommendations for meeting those challenges.

• Improving the Child Welfare Workforce: Lessons Learned from Class Action Litigation
  This report describes a study of efforts to improve the child welfare workforce in the context of class action litigation in 12 states and localities across the natio. The study was conducted by Children's Rights in partnership with the National Center for Youth Law (NCYL),

• Workload Studies
  American Humane has completed workload studies in a number of jurisdictions. Access the reports from their website.

• Workforce Planning Portal
  This site from Cornerstones for Kids provides hands-on tools and resources for human services agencies looking for solutions to workforce challenges. It is a comprehensive model agencies can use to address these challenges.

Curriculum

• The Retention of Public Child Welfare Workers
  This curriculum from the California Social Work Education Center is intended to help child welfare workers, administrators, and policy-makers increase the job retention of public child welfare caseworkers.

• Staff Retention in Child and Family Services
  The purpose of this training series of workbooks from the Michigan State University School of Social Work is to increase child and family service agencies' effectiveness in developing and retaining their staff by applying information from research and best retention practices to their work. Workbooks are available to download.

Teleconference

• Recruitment and Retention of Staff in the Child Welfare System
  Listen to the audio files and download handouts from an August 15, 2007 teleconference on staff recruitment and retention, hosted jointly by the NRCFCPPP and the Child Welfare League of America for state foster care and adoption managers.

Webcast

• Child Welfare Workforce Development and Workplace Enhancement Institute
  Held on October 24-26, 2005, this Children's Bureau Institute highlighted informed strategies for recruiting and retaining a stable and highly skilled child welfare workforce. View three plenary sessions and two workshops, including:
  • Success in the Workplace: Connecting and Agency's Vision, Mission, and Values to the Workforce and the Impact/Influence this has on the Organizational Culture
  • Promising Approaches to Recruiting and Retaining Quality Child Welfare Workers
  • Child and Family Services Reviews (CFSR) Workforce Related Findings – Focused on Training
  • Designing, Implementing and Evaluating a Research Driven Model in New York State Public Child Welfare Organizations
  • The Role of Leadership and Decision Makers in Improving Workforce Practices

• Recruitment and Retention of Child Welfare Workers, 2005-2007
  Prepared for our teleconference by the Child Welfare Information Gateway. Compiled in August 2007. For newer titles added to the Gateway database, click: http://basis.caliber.com/cwig/ws/library/docs/gateway/SearchForm

• Research Bibliography: Relations Between Workforce Development and Child Outcomes in Four Human Service Sectors
  This bibliography from the Harvard Family Research Project was compiled as part of a research review on the effects of workforce development on child outcomes in four human service sectors: child welfare, early childhood education, juvenile justice, and youth development. The review is guided by a broad model of workforce development that includes contextual factors such as workforce characteristics; individual professional development and organizational and policy supports that contribute to a high-quality workforce; and the short- and intermediate-term outcomes leading to improved outcomes for children and youth. Consequently, the articles listed below include research on various components and links in this broad model.