December 29, 2017

How does turnover affect outcomes and what can be done to address retention?

A high rate of workforce turnover is common in the child welfare field. High turnover affects not only the agency, primarily through higher costs, but also the children and families the agency serves. Not all turnover is preventable, but agencies can be aware of the factors that are predictive of high turnover and implement strategies to mitigate those factors.

A well-trained, highly skilled, well-resourced and appropriately deployed workforce is foundational to a child welfare agency’s ability to achieve best outcomes for the vulnerable children, youth and families it serves

Why retention matters

Investing in the child welfare workforce is an essential activity of any child welfare agency,¹ “because a well-trained, highly skilled, well-resourced and appropriately deployed workforce is foundational to a child welfare agency’s ability to achieve best outcomes for the vulnerable children, youth and families it serves. The workforce is the agency’s public face. …The actions of the workforce are what stakeholders use most to judge an agency’s competence and effectiveness.”²

Turnover rates

Annual turnover rates below 10–12 percent are considered optimal or healthy.^3,4 For the past 15 years, child welfare turnover rates have been estimated at 20–40 percent.^5,6,7 The available data currently reflect an estimated national average turnover rate of approximately 30 percent (with individual agency rates as high as 65 percent and as low as 6 percent). Even higher average rates of turnover have been noted among child welfare trainees: 46–54 percent.^8,9 The table in the appendix provides a snapshot of current turnover rates in 33 child welfare agencies.

Turnover predictors and costs

A meta-analysis of 22 studies identified 36 variables that most affected caseworkers’ intention to leave¹⁰(see chart below).

High workloads that accompany high caseloads have been associated with high turnover, given their impact on caseworkers’ levels of stress, emotional exhaustion, and job satisfaction,^11,12,13 and on key casework functions, including:

Timeliness, continuity, and quality of service delivery;
Family engagement and relationship-building; and,
Safety and permanency outcomes for vulnerable children, youth, and families.

High workloads can have a domino effect: staff burnout and stress lead to staff attrition that can result in decreased worker-family contact and failure to meet professional standards for investigation response and completion; case plan completion and updates, and service provision; as well as increased time to permanency, rates of maltreatment recurrence, and the number of foster care placements and re-entries into foster care.^11,12,13

High caseloads and workloads

High caseloads and workloads reflect an array of direct and indirect costs:¹⁴

Direct costs related to overtime, worker separation, and hiring/training new staff
Indirect costs for other workers (increased paperwork and case management, emotional exhaustion, supervisors redirecting time to providing direct service)
Cost of processing changes in placement (staff meetings, new reports, identifying and placing a child in new placement, paperwork)
Cost of increased time in foster care (whether a group or family home) as a result of reduced permanency and decreased chances of reunification
Cost of recurrence of abuse and neglect, including the cost of investigation(s) and foster care placement(s)
Cost of failure to meet federal performance standards, including potential loss of federal Title IV-E funding

Every time a caseworker leaves, the cost to the child welfare agency is 30–200 percent of the exiting employee’s annual salary.¹⁵ In Texas, this estimated cost to the child welfare agency was found to be approximately $54,000 per departing staff member.¹⁶

Given the costs associated with caseworkers’ intentions to leave, strategies related to addressing variables most likely to affect turnover — stress, emotional exhaustion, organizational commitment, and job satisfaction—should be prioritized for legislative and agency attention.

Strategies to support effective recruitment and retention

Research and practice have highlighted 10 essential components of workforce development, with an accompanying menu of strategies. Some states have made significant investments in comprehensive workforce development,¹⁷ and several legislatures have mandated that jurisdictions assess workforce issues, meet identified standards, implement specific strategies such as hiring additional staff, and report on progress.^18,19

The resources below provide a range of potential strategies for consideration, along with links to related approaches and examples for further exploration.