Child Welfare Worker "Intent to Leave" Survey

In June 2016, DCF administered a flash survey to the state’s child welfare work-force to explore the issue of worker turnover. The survey was administered electronically by the University of Wisconsin Survey Center (UWSC), and sent to all workers (excluding supervisors) who have child welfare cases in eWiSACWIS.

This survey was a point-in-time snapshot of Wisconsin public child welfare workers’ views on their intent to leave (ITL) their jobs. Questions to gauge ITL included whether workers had considered looking for another job in the past six months, whether they had searched for a job in that time frame, and if so, whether they had sent out any résumés to potential employers.  In addition, the survey included a series of questions about a number of factors known to be associated with worker turnover in child welfare systems. Appendix A shows the list of question items included in the survey. They can be categorized in the following manner:

• Burnout: The degree to which workers feel emotionally drained by the nature of their work.

• Careercommitment: Whether workers intend for child welfare to be their long-term profession.

• Supervisor and coworker support: The extent to which workers feel that their team members are resources and sources of support in managing their workload.

• Organizationalinclusion:The extent to which workers feel they are treated as professionals within their agencies.

• Stressors: A series of common child welfare worker stressors (adapted from the Kansas Workforce Initiative1).

• Demographics: Worker age, gender, job tenure, parent status, marital status, education level, and social work training.