Job satisfaction and skills of a home visiting workforce in South Carolina

Abstract

This article describes an evaluation of a home visiting workforce in South Carolina, US. Using multiple surveys, the workforce was examined to determine its demographic characteristics, job satisfaction and confidence in core competencies. Overall, the home visitors were well-educated and experienced, but most were relatively new to their current agencies. Around 22% were less than satisfied with their work, with the greatest areas of dissatisfaction being pay, working conditions and opportunity for promotion. The home visitors felt well-trained in interpersonal skills but least confident in skills relating to positive parenting, developmental delays and dealing with caregiver depression. Understanding key characteristics of a workforce can inform strategic efforts towards workforce planning, support and training.

Investigating Correlates of Home Visitor Burnout, Compassion Fatigue, and Compassion Satisfaction in New York State: Implications for Home Visiting Workforce Development and Sustainability

“…Similarly, high levels of job satisfaction may have buffered against BO specifically, as the direct relationship between these constructs has been established in studies of other service providers (e.g., Hombrados-Mendieta & Cosano-Rivas 2011 ). Salary has been shown to be a core component of job satisfaction among home visitors (e.g., Radcliff et al, 2017 ). Given that several studies have shown that home visitors frequently leave their positions to pursue higher paying jobs (e.g., Alitz et al, 2018 ; Lin et al, 2018 ; West et al, 2018 ), ensuring that home visitors earn adequate salaries may also improve job satisfaction, which in turn may protect against BO.…”