Managing intense work demands: how child protection workers navigate their professional and personal lives

Abstract

Child protection workers remain understudied in research on 'frontline' workers, even though they are often exposed to the traumatic circumstances of their clients' lives on top of their intense workload, tight deadlines and day-today crisis management. Extensive evidence has shown that both clients' needs and work demands combine to diminish child protection workers' well-being, leading them to experience immense stress, burnout and decreased morale, ultimately compelling them to leave their jobs. Our qualitative study based on semi-structured interviews of child protection workers (N = 15) in Australia examines how child protection workers navigate their daily work and non-work lives. Analysis of the interviews revealed unique contextual characteristics about child protection workers' professional and personal boundaries and the strategies they adopt to navigate their work and non-work roles and responsibilities. Our study's findings call for more assistance and resources for child protection workers with implications for their managers and organisations.

Work intensification and job satisfaction among domestic workers in rural Zimbabwe

“…For instance, a domestic worker can be assigned duties to head cattle, do house chores, and also work in the fields; a situation which leads a worker to be confronted with several duties, roles, and responsibilities at the same time. The findings are consistent with preceding researchers (White et al 2003, Chan et al 2021, Wang et al 2018 who viewed work overload as a major factor that propels work intensification. Work intensification is therefore closely linked to work demands and pressure that is exerted on domestic workers.…”

“…Studies on Covid 19 (Ntshingila 2023, Nyanga & Zirima 2020 show that covid 19 also directly or indirectly affected business operations and employee welfare, which consequently lead to work intensification. Chan et al, (2021) on their study on managing intense work demands established that work intensification was very high among child protection workers; hence workers experience a lot of traumatic situations. The study established that workers were working with very tight deadlines and were also overloaded with work.…”

“…To improve rigor and reduce bias bracketing was utilised. Reflexive diaries on the researchers' assumptions about the subject under investigation were kept as outlined by Chan, Fan and Snell (2021). Consistent with Braun and Clarke (2006) that a phenomenological research approach heavily relies on theme based data analysis, during and after the interviews several themes and sub-themes were observed.…”

“…Employers deliberately choose to give domestic workers verbal contracts so that they can unilaterally add or remove some work tasks or roles as and when it gives them an operational advantage. Research (Chan et al 2021, Chorny et al 2021, White et al 2003 also found out that work intensification is characterized by work overload and tight time frame, which are usually caused by the unavailability of written work contracts explicitly showing all the expectations, roles and responsibilities and obligations of workers and employers. Domestic workers experience extensive work intensification because of employers' failure to provide workers with written employment contracts.…”

‘. . . staff here are just dropped in the deep end’: The Impact of Roles on Communication and Supervisor Support in Youth Custody

“…Staff in secure environments often report negative experiences with support and communication, leading to emotional exhaustion, limited personal accomplishment, reduced commitment to the role, and negative attitudes towards residents (Carpenter et al, 2012; Maslach, 1993; Stanley and Goddard, 2002). The challenge for staff working with young people in custodial environments is heightened by exposure to sensitive and emotionally distressing information (Chan et al, 2020; Davies, 1998; Stanley and Goddard, 2002). Young people in STCs report adverse experiences such as parental separation (68%), pro-criminal family members (68%), domestic abuse (51%), bereavement (25%), and/or experiences in the care system prior to accommodation in the STC (43%) (Paterson-Young et al, 2017).…”