Resumen

Organizational wellness is the responsibility of everyone in an organization — from human resources and executive leadership to supervisors and frontline staff. In a child protection agency, where work is inherently complex and emotionally demanding, the organizational culture rests on shared values, norms, and practices. When wellness is deeply embedded into agency culture, workforce stability and service delivery are strengthened, driving improved outcomes for children and families.

This brief highlights three jurisdictions that center organizational wellness within their child protection agency culture: Franklin County (Ohio), New Jersey, and Washington, D.C.¹ While their strategies vary based on institutional objectives, all of them:

1. Use data to measure change over time.
2. Embed wellness into strategic plans and priorities.
3. Employ staff dedicated to managing organizational health initiatives.

For more information on how worker wellness can be promoted at the individual and organizational levels, see the companion briefs: ¿Qué sabemos sobre el bienestar en las organizaciones de bienestar infantil? y ¿Cómo pueden los líderes centrar el bienestar de la fuerza laboral en las agencias de protección infantil?  

Centering organizational health in Franklin County, Ohio

Franklin County Children Services (FCCS) is a child protection agency in Ohio, a state that operates a county-administered child welfare system. The agency employs about 800 direct service and administrative staff and serves 1.32 million people throughout the capital city of Columbus and its metro area.

Recognizing the inextricable tie between workforce well-being and quality service delivery, FCCS has integrated wellness into its organizational identity. In 2021, the agency established the Organizational Health Department (OHD). Operating separately from Human Resources, the department focuses on agency culture and practice. “Positioning organizational health outside of employee relations signals that agency culture and wellness are distinct from compliance and conflict resolution,” says Tanya McClanahan, director of FCCS’ Inclusion and Analysis Division that oversees OHD. With a five-employee team, OHD prioritizes a proactive and sustainable approach to workforce stability that it describes as a “catalyst for agencywide change.”

Leadership commitment

Employee wellness is a pillar within the FCCS strategic plan, thereby formalizing a safe and engaged workforce as an organizational priority. A range of wellness initiatives are integrated across practice and program operations throughout the agency, such as Well-being at Work, a framework grounded in the U.S. Surgeon General’s guidance on workplace mental health and well-being. The agency’s commitment to wellness is anchored in the idea that staff cannot engage well with children and families unless their own workplace experience is grounded in wellness, says FCCS Executive Director Chip Spinning. The FCCS leadership team invests necessary resources to examine organizational culture, align agency goals with staff wellness support, and collect data to identify areas for potential growth and track improvement over time.

FCCS reports a 13% turnover rate over the past two years — a comparably low rate for child welfare work. Leadership attributes the workforce retention to the agency’s efforts toward organizational wellness.

Leading with data

To monitor agency culture and inform initiatives, OHD, in partnership with the National Partnership for Child Safely (NPCS) conducts a biennial employee survey that measures emotional exhaustion, workplace connectedness, psychological safety, and intent to remain employed in child welfare. From 2019 to 2024, survey results showed agency improvement across nearly all safety culture scales:

• Emotional exhaustion, a key component of burnout and predictor of turnover, decreased from 36% to 31%.
• Workplace connectedness, which measures the extent that employees feel connected to their coworkers, increased from 75% to 84%.
• Psychological safety, an indicator of staff feeling accepted and respected in the workplace, increased from 62% to 75%.
• Intent to remain employed in child welfare increased from 64% to 72%.

FCCS hosts Listening Lounges, where staff discuss survey findings and develop solutions for further improvement. Each month, insights from the sessions are shared with agency leaders to inform their decision-making.

FCCS also utilizes forums like Building a Community of Hope y el Reflection Room to align individual wellness activities with macro-level organizational goals. These forums feature presentations and discussions on a range of topics such as inclusivity, culture, equity, mental health, and well-being, offering staff and leadership a safe space to candidly share and learn together. These efforts not only support staff to feel empowered and heard, they model the values FCCS leaders expect staff to mirror when serving children and families.

As part of its ongoing review of survey results disaggregated by staff demographics, FCCS found that workplace safety culture improvements were not always experienced equally across staff. Using 2024 survey data as baseline, the agency’s intentional and strategic efforts over the past two years have shown clear improvement in closing that gap. Staff is now surveyed every two years, and the data is used to drive change within the agency.

Encouraging a culture of wellness in New Jersey

The New Jersey Department of Children and Families (DCF) employs about 6,600 people, most of them working in the Division of Child Protection and Permanency. Child protection staff are known to manage high caseloads, which leads to burnout, low morale, and high staff turnover.

DCF leadership established the Office of Staff Health and Wellness (OSHW) as part of a broader organizational transformation focused on workforce wellness, development, and retention. Launched initially with two employees, OSHW has expanded to a team of 19 focused on shifting the agency culture from a “go-go-go” atmosphere to one that promotes a healthier and more balanced lifestyle. This is accomplished through a series of wellness initiatives and activities that empower employees to prioritize their own health, while increasing staff access to educational resources and supports.

Change over time

Workplace culture change is an iterative, gradual process. To track progress, DCF launched a biennial agencywide safety culture survey in 2021 to measure shifts in psychological safety, workplace connectedness, and emotional exhaustion. Safety as a whole is a major focus of OSHW’s wellness initiatives, and survey results show psychological safety (feeling acceptance and respect in the workplace) holding steady at 62% since 2021, while workplace safety (feeling physically safe while at work) has shown significant improvement from 61% in 2021 to 73% in 2025.

DCF’s research unit also gathers feedback from staff through post-wellness engagement satisfaction and engagement surveys. This data allows the agency to immediately and accurately assess ongoing service demands and quality, helping to shape future staff wellness initiatives.

Cultivating wellness across all staff levels

Data also enables OSHW to design wellness activities that align with the needs and interests of staff at all levels. For example, when DCF supervisors and managers requested practical tools to model well-being behaviors in work practices, OSHW developed resources and provided coaching on how to seamlessly weave wellness into daily operations. Supervisors now frame meetings with staff around wellness, beginning each session with a check-in on workers’ own well-being before diving into specific case issues.

Recognizing and managing the job-related trauma that staff experience or witness is another essential aspect of workforce wellness and retention. For example, following a critical incident, such as the death of a child or family member known to the agency, OSHW is notified immediately to provide support to the affected staff or team. To further help staff manage stress, address fatigue, and mitigate burnout, DCF implemented workload limits, specifying that local offices will have an average caseload for permanency workers with no more than 15 families and a maximum of 10 children in out-of-home care.

Additional resources also are available, such as De trabajador a trabajador, which offers confidential peer counseling from those who used to work in New Jersey’s child protection agency. Because child protection work involves extraordinarily high stress, the program is run by trained peer counselors, former agency workers who truly understand the job’s unique pressures. Operating independently of DCF, staff can receive a variety of free, confidential services including peer support, clinical assessments with licensed professionals, and crisis intervention when high-stress situations escalate.

DCF highlights emergent themes across the agency through a monthly podcast, which includes episodes that address employee wellness. This internal platform has been instrumental in reassuring staff that they are not alone in their experiences and has increased awareness of supportive resources, says OSHW Executive Director Nancy Carre-Lee.

Approaching wellness holistically in Washington, D.C.

The Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA) in Washington, D.C., which employs about 675, launched its Wellness Works initiative in 2018 to foster and sustain a supportive workplace culture. Wellness remains a core agency priority nearly a decade later.

CFSA embeds this commitment in its strategic plan, staffing structure, and agency culture, with an emphasis on psychological safety, accountability, and employee retention. The agency hired a Health and Wellness Coordinator who oversees broad-scale workplace wellness initiatives, offers individual staff support, and works with human resources and health insurance providers to secure external services and funding for programs.

Wellness broadly defined

CFSA recognizes that wellness is deeply personal, requiring a flexible approach rather than a one-size-fits-all strategy. To accommodate diverse needs, the agency incorporates seven recognized dimensions of wellness: physical, intellectual, emotional, environmental, financial, occupational, and social.

Across these dimensions, CFSA offers a wide range of activities. For example, the agency observes a Meeting-Free Midway once a week for two hours, which is flexible time set aside for staff to focus specifically on self-care, like medical appointments. CFSA also provides additional wellness spaces like a lactation room, and serenity rooms equipped with chaise lounges providing staff accessible spaces to decompress and reset. The workplace also includes wellness libraries, on-site blood pressure monitors for preventative care, and organized health activities such as breast cancer awareness seminars and walks for interested staff. The agency’s Health and Wellness Coordinator works with individual supervisors to also integrate short wellness activities directly into standard staff meetings. This helps maximize participation and tailor activities to individual team needs.

Child protection agency leaders run the risk of focusing on staff wellness at the expense of their own well-being. Leader wellness, however, requires the same attention and investment, especially since executives and senior leaders navigate high-stakes decisions and intense pressures with few outlets to openly process their experiences. CFSA offers a retreat for senior leaders and executives where they are able to blend peer and large-group learning with practical wellness exercises. Tracie Johnson, Health and Wellness Coordinator, described the experience as “deeply validating and replenishing”, noting the event demonstrated the agency’s commitment to actively modeling wellness at all levels.

Measuring wellness

In 2025, CFSA introduced an evaluation tool to establish a baseline for workforce wellness. Early benchmarks indicate strong workplace connectedness (82%), psychological safety (77%) and intent to remain employed in child welfare (72%), as well as an indicator that 24% of staff experience job-related emotional exhaustion. The agency will track progress in these core wellness measures over time and identify areas for improvement.

To drive continuous improvement, CFSA uses a combination of quantitative and qualitative data, such as participation activity logs and feedback from supervisors and staff. The data helps inform future workplace wellness efforts. For example, staff expressed interest in peer recognition, which sparked a Heart of the Work peer-to-peer appreciation initiative, alongside ongoing recognition of milestones such as staff member birthdays and anniversaries.