Resilience and Burnout in Child Protection Social Work: Individual and Organisational Themes from a Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

Child protection social work is acknowledged as a very stressful occupation with high turnover and poor retention of staff being a major concern. This paper highlights themes that emerged from findings of 65 articles that were included as part of a systematic literature review. The review focused on the evaluation of research findings, which considered individual and organizational factors associated with resilience or burnout in child protection social work staff. The results identified a range of individual and organizational themes for staff in child protection social work.Nine themes were identified in total. These are categorised under 'Individual' and 'Organizational' themes. Themes categorised as individual included, personal history of maltreatment, training and preparation for child welfare, coping, secondary traumatic stress, compassion fatigue and compassion satisfaction. Those classified as organisational included workload, social support and supervision, organizational culture and climate, organizational and professional commitment and job satisfaction or dissatisfaction. The range of factors are discussed with recommendations and areas for future research are highlighted.

South African Child and Family Welfare Services: Changing Times or Business as Usual?

“…The combination of high caseloads, the perception of having less control over workloads, and ineffectiveness can lead to stress (Abramovitz & Zelnick, 2010). A major contributing factor to burn-out in child protection social workers is the unmanageability of the work load, resulting in resignations (McFadden, Campbell and Taylor, 2014). Responses of social workers, according to the study by Dlamini and Sewpaul (2015), were the experience of a sense of powerlessness and hopelessness, and the majority of them were seeking other employment.…”

Systematic Reviews: A Social Work Perspective

“…Editorial requirements of journals can also place significant constraints on reporting of systematic reviews (Littell, 2006) although higher impact journals such as Research on Social Work Practice and Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research, are increasingly requiring a robust methodology for any literature review they publish, irrespective of the research question. The PRISMA guidelines recognise space limitations in journals by noting a requirement that a full search strategy for only one database is required (Moher et al, 2009) and with many journals now being Australian Social Work 291 published online, the potential for publishing supplementary details electronically is emerging (e.g., McFadden, Campbell, & Taylor, 2014).…”

Youth counsellors' experiences of telephone counselling: a qualitative exploration

“…There are multiple, and contested, definitions present in the literature, reflecting the various foci and disciplines adopted by resilience researchers (Reid & Botterill, 2013;Shaikh & Kauppi, 2010). Despite this lack of clarity, a review of the literature indicates that the term resilience places emphasis on adaptation, growth and positive outcomes in the face of adversity (McFadden, Campbell, & Taylor, 2015;Reid & Botterill, 2013;Shaikh & Kauppi, 2010).…”

“…Individual resilience is associated with factors such as a personal history of maltreatment, coping style, and level of job satisfaction (McFadden et al, 2015). There is a growing body of research on broader conceptualisations of this construct including organisational resilience, which explores the impact of organisational factors such as organisational culture and climate, workload, support from peers and management on positive organisational outcomes (McFadden et al, 2015). Conversely, organisational factors such as poor social support, unmanageable caseloads, and defensive organisational cultures are argued to be the main contributors to turnover in non-resilient services (McFadden et al, 2015).…”

“…There is a growing body of research on broader conceptualisations of this construct including organisational resilience, which explores the impact of organisational factors such as organisational culture and climate, workload, support from peers and management on positive organisational outcomes (McFadden et al, 2015). Conversely, organisational factors such as poor social support, unmanageable caseloads, and defensive organisational cultures are argued to be the main contributors to turnover in non-resilient services (McFadden et al, 2015). It is also apparent that the broader organisational context plays a significant role in shaping individual resilience in organisations.…”