No description available.

No description available.

Ajzen's Theory of Planned Behavior with the addition of Perceived Moral Obligation was used to investigate the behavioral intentions of 65 caseworkers of the Children's Services Division (CSD) to cooperate with Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASAs) on cases involving abused or neglected children. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that the subjective norms and perceived moral obligation constructs were significant predictors of the three behavioral intention categories and of all three categories combined. The two constructs, however, seem to have a considerable amount of overlap, suggesting that they may be measuring what is broadly called "social pressure to perform/not to perform 11 the target behavior. Perceived Behavioral Control was not significant in any categories and the attitude measure was marginally predictive. Possible reasons for the nonsignificant contributions of the two constructs include low inter-item correlations, questionnaire format, missing data concentrated in the two constructs, and finally, the notion that the caseworkers' attitudes and perceptions of control were of little consequence in their decisions to cooperate with CASAs. Of the three behavioral intention categories, all models performed best for the second category, 11voluntarily sharing pertinent Information about the cases with CASAs." The attitude construct performed best for this category, especially in the first and second models. Unlike the other two, this asked about the caseworkers' 11voluntary" cooperation. This finding seems to confinn the argument that Ajzen's models work better for a behavior for which one perceives greater volitional control. Prior, direct working experience with CASAs turned out to be an essential part of the attitude construct. The tested models performed better with the 54 caseworkers who had had direct working experience with CASAs in the last .. 24 months. This finding seems to indicate that the data from the 11 "no-experience" workers should not be combined with that of the 54 workers. Future studies of the theory of planned behavior with this sample are discussed.

The purpose of the research study was to assess the job satisfaction of child welfae workers specifically working for San Bernardino County Department of Children's Services.

No description available.

Thesis (M.S.W.)--Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2005. / Bibliography: leaves 77-80.

Clients involved with child protection systems due to issues of neglect are known to have multiple needs. The issues that they confront are personal, situational, and social in nature. The emphasis on risk reduction in many jurisdictions within North America has meant that needs have been given less priority. The aim of the exploratory study was to gain a better understanding of both the nature of needs and risks in cases of child neglect in Ontario, as well as the similarities and differences in the views of clients and child protection workers. It is posited that through the acquisition of knowledge in those areas, that improvements can be made in assessing and planning, in creating agreed upon expectations about the objectives of intervention, and in developing a better balance between the addressing of needs and risks. / For the study, an instrument was designed to measure client perceptions of their problems and needs. It was compared with workers' perceptions of risk as contained in the risk assessment instrument completed by all child protection workers in Ontario. The Client Perception of Problems and Needs Scale was administered to 77 parents receiving services from Family and Children's Services of Renfrew County due to concerns about child neglect. / The finding that participants felt their needs were greatest in dealing with issues of stress, child behaviour and mental health issues, and in coping with socio-economic disadvantage was congruent with the few studies that have been conducted on the perceptions of child protection clients about their needs and problems. The analysis of the risk assessment data provided evidence that reliance on risk reduction at the expense of needs-based approaches, is not warranted. Few similarities were found in the perceptions of clients and workers about the issues of greatest concern. However, it was surprising that few concerns emerged about the clients' living conditions, or the affective interaction between clients and their children. Finally, the study demonstrated that the participants were able to recognize their problems, used various coping strategies for dealing with them, and were able to articulate strengths and resources on which they relied.

The present study examines the use of formal and informal supervision as it relates to determining burnout in child welfare social workers. This was measured by using the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI). Respondents were social workers in a small child protection agency. Using descriptive data and frequencies, results were used to focus directions for further research. The results indicate that only the length of formal supervision is significant in reducing emotional exhaustion in social workers (p < .05). Higher education levels were also seen as a protective factor against depersonalization (n = 16).

Stress and burnout have received a great deal of attention in the child welfare field. This has been due to such issues as the high workload, the complexity of the cases, working with resistant and at times violent clients and the negative work environment of the youth protection agency. These factors have a detrimental effect on the worker's personal and professional resources and undermine the healthy functioning of the agency, all of which ultimately affects best practice with clients. One way in which child welfare organizations could make an effort towards reclaiming clinical practice is to engage in training for its workforce. Training can benefit practitioners by improving their skills and knowledge and this can lead to greater job satisfaction. Agency functioning is improved by having a trained workforce as well as social workers who are knowledgeable regarding agency policies, values and models of intervention. Children and families ultimately benefit by working with practitioners who are equipped with the appropriate skills. These benefits for workers, clients and the agency cannot materialize unless barriers are removed and changes within the agency take place in order to support the effective transfer of knowledge and training.

This quantitative study was conducted using a population of Child Protection Social Workers (CPSWs) and other staff at a relatively small Child Welfare agency in Eastern Ontario (Northumberland County). The participants (n = 29) completed four questionnaires aimed at gathering data regarding demographics, Ongoing Stressors, Critical Incidents, and Horowitz's Impact of Events Scale (IES). The goal of the research was to add to the scant empirical data regarding stress and post-traumatic stress in CPSWs and Child Welfare organizations as a whole. The results indicated that 9 out of 11 front-line CPSWs were considered to be experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder based on their IES scores at the time of the testing. The study includes descriptive and correlational data for the participants.