Staff Wellbeing and Retention in Children’s Social Work: Systematic Review of Interventions
Open accessAbstract
Objective: To systematically review international evidence on the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of interventions targeting the mental health, wellbeing, and retention of child and family social workers and their impact on child and family outcomes.Method:Systematic review and narrative synthesis of quantitative comparative studies. Published or unpublished research was sought via 12 bibliographic databases, websites, contact with experts, and citation tracking. Studies in any language were eligible for inclusion. Quality was assessed using Cochrane appraisal tools.Results: Fifteen studies were identified from 24 papers. Three studies considered individual-level interventions, with mixed and inconclusive findings. Eleven considered organisational interventions, with mixed but more promising findings. One study considered community-level interventions, with positive findings but a serious risk of bias. Only one study considered costs.Conclusion: The quality of evidence overall does not warrant clear recommendations for services. Organisation-level interventions show some promise. Robust, high-quality interventional studies are needed.
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Social work is a stressful occupation with many aspects of the job proving stressful or overwhelming for practitioners dealing with substantial caseloads, bureaucratic structures, reducing resources, constant policy changes, staff shortages, client trauma, public scrutiny, and a blame culture.
“Social work is a stressful occupation with many aspects of the job proving stressful or, at times, overwhelming for practitioners dealing with substantial caseloads, bureaucratic structures, reducing resources, constant policy changes, staff shortages, client trauma, public scrutiny, and a blame culture (Kinman et al., 2020; Turley et al., 2021).”
From A randomised trial of Mindfulness-based Social Work and Self-Care with social workers (2023) · cites this paper as Turley et al., 2021
The paper’s introductory section describes high work demands, ineffective bureaucracy, rapidly changing policy, public criticism, a blame culture, and the emotional demands of working with families who have experienced trauma. It also reports workload pressure and high stress among social workers. The passages do not establish reducing resources or staff shortages as stressors; the copy provides no page numbers for these passages. (LLM, conf=0.85)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe average length of a social work career in the UK is less than 8 years, significantly shorter than nurses (16 years) and medical doctors (25 years).
“Turley et al. (2021) highlight that the average length of a social work career in the United Kingdom is less than 8 years, which is significantly shorter than that of nurses (16 years) and medical doctors (25 years).”
From Testing Mindfulness Mechanisms of Action on the Stress and Burnout of Social Workers (2024) · cites this paper as Turley et al., 2021
UK social workers have an average working life span of <8 years compared to nursing (16 years) and medicine (25 years).
“Indeed, Turley et al (2021) point to evidence suggesting UK social workers have an average working life span of < 8 years compared to their healthcare counterparts in nursing (16 years) and medicine (25 years).”
From A randomised trial of Mindfulness-based Social Work and Self-Care with social workers (2023) · cites this paper as Turley et al (2021)
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
A randomised trial of Mindfulness-based Social Work and Self-Care with social workers
Maddock, A., McGuigan, K., & McCusker, P. (2023) · Current Psychology · doi:10.1007/s12144-023-04410-w · Cited by 27 · see citing works
“Indeed, Turley et al (2021) point to evidence suggesting UK social workers have an average working life span of 8 years compared to their healthcare counterparts in nursing (16 years) and medicine (25 years).”
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“Social workers also have to operate within neoliberal managerial and bureaucratic environments, which are often counter to the profession’s value base, while implementing policy and leg-islative changes, with very limited resources (Kinman et al., 2020; Lavee & Strier, 2018; Turley et al., 2021).”
Testing Mindfulness Mechanisms of Action on the Stress and Burnout of Social Workers
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“…about the need reduce social worker stress, burnout and subsequent attrition within the profession (Kinman et al., 2020; Romero-Martín et al., 2024; Turley et al., 2021), and the potentially important role that MBPs could play in social work education and practice to meet this need (Beer et al.,…”
- Authors
- Turley, R., Roberts, S., Foster, C., Warner, N., El-Banna, A., Evans, R., Nurmatov, U., Walpita, Y., & Scourfield, J.
- Affiliations
- Centre for the Development and Evaluation of Complex Interventions for Public Health Improvement (GB)
- Welsh Government (GB)
- Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research, Data and Methods (GB)
- Cardiff University (GB)
- University of Warwick (GB)
- University of Colombo (LK)
- Corresponding author
- Scourfield, Jonathan
- ORCID
- Venue
- Research on Social Work Practice
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2021-10-28
- Volume
- 32
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 281-309
- ISSN
- 1049-7315 (ISSN-L)
- 1552-7581
- OpenAlex
- W3207549337
- Cited by
- 39
- References
- 48
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 15 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 1
- FWCI
- 1.79
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- orcid.org
- Locations
- Research on Social Work Practice (publishedVersion)
- ORCA Online Research @Cardiff (Cardiff University) (acceptedVersion)
- Warwick Research Archive Portal (University of Warwick) (acceptedVersion)
- ORCA Online Research @Cardiff (Cardiff University) (submittedVersion)
- ORCA Online Research @Cardiff (Cardiff University) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Funders
- Department for Education, UK Government (41070002828)
- Centre for the Development and Evaluation of Complex Interventions for Public Health Improvement
- UK Clinical Research Collaboration Public Health Research: Centre of Excellence
- British Heart Foundation
- Cancer Research UK
- Economic and Social Research Council (RES-590-28-0005)
- Medical Research Council
- Welsh Government
- Wellcome Trust (WT087640MA)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Public Administration › Social Work Education and Practice
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Stress and Burnout Research
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Child Welfare and Adoption
- Keywords
- employee well-being, employee retention, child and family social work, organizational interventions, community-level interventions, individual interventions, cost-effectiveness, child and family outcomes
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