abstract: ABSTRACT The child welfare workforce is charged with the demanding work of ensuring the safety, well-being, and permanency of maltreated children. Although child welfare work can be rewarding, it is also associated with high levels of stress and burnout, causing challenges to retain staff. Developing organizational cultures and climates within child welfare agencies that are supportive of the workforce and strive to improve outcomes is essential. Applying the ecological systems theory to a child welfare agency provides for an understanding that the agency is comprised of different levels of systems with interactions between the systems. This study examined the association between the individual level factors of job satisfaction, coping skills, self-efficacy, burnout, job stress, and individual affect with organizational level factors including culture and climate. Child welfare workers from one regional area were invited to participate in an online survey utilizing the Comprehensive Organizational Health Assessment and the Positive and Negative Affect Scale. Results indicate that there is an association between each of the individual level factors and the organizational factors. The importance of the role of individual affect was highlighted in the results in that the level of affect reported was associated with corresponding ratings of the perception of the organizational culture and climate. These results provide implications for hiring, training, mentoring, and supervision. This study attempted to assess if the organizational culture and climate of individual child welfare units could be linked to permanency outcomes. This linkage was not possible in this study, however implications to conduct this type of research are made. Advancing the study of organizational culture and climate beyond the impact of such factors as job satisfaction and retention to linking to direct client outcomes is an emerging and important field of research. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Social Work 2017

This paper examines the relationship between a multi-attribute attitude model and residential preference as a step towards developing an attitudinal model of housing choice. The use of multi-attribute attitude models, similar to those employed in marketing research, is suggested as a viable means of measuring residential preference, on the basis of measures of individual affect. Conceptual and measurement problems with each component of the suggested model are discussed and two attitude models of residential preference are presented. These models are empirically tested in a pilot study which deals with the housing preferences of a sample of on campus residents at McMaster University. The relationship which is shown to exist between attitude and preference in the pilot study, supports proposals for recommending an attitude model approach to the analysis of housing choice, in a more intensive enquiry. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)