The retention of experienced social workers is a long-standingissue in child and family social work, both in the UnitedKingdom and internationally. In the United States, typical ten-ure for child welfare workers is less than 2 years, with an an-nual turnover rate of 20%–40% (Guzman et al. 2020). Similarretention rates have been reported in Europe (Astvik, Welander,and Larsson 2020; Frost et al. 2018). In England, the turn overrate of child and family social workers peaked at 17.1% in 2022,currently standing at 15.9% (Department for Education 2024)
Despite this slight decrease, high turnover and the retention of experienced workers are recognized as an urgent and endemic issue in child and family social work.
Failure to retain experienced social workers has significant implications. Firstly, novice practitioners may lack the skills to manage high-risk cases and are typically less able to identify gaps and patterns in case information (Whittaker 2018). Second, because experienced workers play a key role in supporting the learning of early career social workers (Johnson et al. 2023),their loss impacts workforce development. Third, the economic costs of training rather than retaining social workers are high(Bowyer and Roe 2015). A high turnover of staff also impacts service quality, creating a lack of consistency for families(Baginsky 2023), which may impact on outcomes for children(Turley et al. 2020). As Thoburn et al. (2021) observe, most re-search to date has focused on early leavers, rather than experienced workers who have stayed in the profession long-term. The present research addresses this gap, seeking to learn from experienced stayers about what sustains long-term retention. Ata national level, the findings from this research address the key issue of retention in child and family social work. We advances specific recommendations for the retention of expertise among local authority social workers. The findings are also of international relevance for child welfare systems in the United States and Europe where there are similar issues around retention.
Retention in Child and Family Social Work
Child and family social work is recognized as an emotionally demanding profession with high levels of burnout compared with other types of social work (Hussein 2018; McFadden, Campbell, and Taylor 2015). Working in the emotive context of child abuse and neglect involves intense emotional labor (Winter et al. 2019).Stressors such as reduced resources (Grootegoed and Smith 2018),high caseloads, increased bureaucracy (Ravalier et al. 2021),poor supervision and work-conflict (Welander, Astvik, and Isaksson 2019) can shape social workers’ intention to leave andplace them at increased risk of burnout (McFadden, Campbell, and Taylor 2015), secondary traumatic stress (Weiss-Dagan, Ben-Porat, and Itzhaky 2022) and moral distress (Mänttäri-vander Kuip 2020). In England, the latest wave of the 5-year longitudinal study of local authority child and family social workers echoed these themes; the most commonly cited reasons given by those who were considering leaving in the next year were: high caseload (49%), working hours in general (45%), the amount of paperwork (37%) and dislike of the working culture (32%) (Johnsonet al. 2023). For experienced workers, a lack of established career pathways has been identified as an additional barrier to retention(Healy, Meagher, and Cullin 2009; MacAlister 2022).
Despite these push factors, there are powerful motivations for social workers to stay in the profession. These include job sat-is faction and engagement (Hussein 2018), organizational embeddedness (Burns, Christie, and O’Sullivan 2020) and a strong commitment to the profession of child and family social work(McFadden, Campbell, and Taylor 2015). Several studies indicate that social workers can experience high levels of job satisfactionand emotional exhaustion simultaneously, suggesting that the ability to find ongoing meaning and rewards in their work may allow them to manage the intense emotional demands of practice (McFadden, Campbell, and Taylor 2015; Stalker et al. 2007).Peer and collegial support help sustain social workers (Ravalieret al. 2021; Sedivy et al. 2020; Guzman et al. 2020; Biggartet al. 2017). In particular, support from team colleagues, a goodrelationship with line managers and effective supervision are associated with retention (McLaughlin et al. 2023; Tham 2022;Russ, Lonne, and Lynch 2020; Ferguson et al. 2020). Experience itself is an important predictor of retention. In the United States, Guzman et al. (2020) found that the odds of staying increased by 14% for each additional year in the job. Burns, Christie, and O’Sullivan’s (2020) study of child protection in Ireland found that ‘if you can retain social workers after the 5-year point’ their ‘retention narratives intensify, organizational embeddedness and confidence increases’ (Burns, Christie, and O’Sullivan 2020,1363). Similarly, Griffiths and Royse’s (2017) US study of child welfare workers found that those in practice for ≥8 years ex-pressed greater levels of job satisfaction. This suggests that capturing the perspectives of long-serving social workers may enable us to identify factors that support long-term retention.