Child Welfare Staff and Burnout; an indigenous Perspective Presenter Ume Laila Roshni Homes Trust Pakistan

INTRODUCTION “The well-being of children served by the child welfare system is put at risk by the difficulties child welfare organizations experience in recruiting and retaining competent staff as turnover results in staff shortages and high caseloads that impair workers’ abilities to perform critical case management functions.” (Levy 2005).

Continued.. Child welfare organization staff is not acknowledged as front line staff yet just like police officers, nurses and fire fighters, they must counter to emergency situations with insufficient directions about what may lie ahead. Moreover to the very real individual physical risks attached with countering to a report of suspected child abuse or neglect, they are at risks of psychological injury when handling to situations involving children and families that are experiencing abuse, neglect, and family and/or community violence. Unluckily, Child welfare organization staff receives little gratitude publicly for the risks their work involves, and child welfare-related news very hardly ever focuses on the positive aspects of child protection and the many day-to-day successes that result from staff’s efforts. Instead, the focal point is typically negative, which can increase stress and pressure on Child welfare staff and the system overall.

Continued.. Child welfare staff is at risk to burnout and occupational stress because of the susceptible nature of their consumers, the impulsive nature of their jobs, the culture of their organization and their comparative lack of physical and psychological safety. Horowitz notes that “vicarious exposures to the events of client’s lives are inescapable for Child welfare organization personnel and may be more poisonous [than direct exposure to violence] because they more fully reflect workers’ lack of control and inability to adequately impact clients’ lives” (Horowitz, M. 2006). Neglecting, this can lead Child welfare staff to feel helpless, have reduced perception and critical thinking skills, take on a negative world view and have difficulty identifying and examining their emotions and reactivity.

Continued.. As a result of frequent experience to possible traumatic events, they may be more pertinent to avoid reminders of past cases, over- or under-react to potential vulnerability to themselves or to their consumers, and experience factionalism and a lack of cooperation with their supervisors and colleagues. Traumatic event exposure has cost that can be transferable. If many people in a work setting are highly short-tempered, confrontational and cynical as a result of their exposure to traumatic events, this is bound to negatively affect the people around them. Over time, this can lead an entire work area or organization to behave like a disturbed person.

Literature Review There is significant correlations between lower (MBI) scores and such protective factors as institutional support, supervision, education and age (James T. Decker, 2002). Many researchers have studied the causes of burnout, and these causes can be grouped into three different categories: personal characteristics, job/role characteristics, and organizational characteristics (Candice L. Seti, 2008)

Conceptual Model of Job Burnout Job Demand-support model ISO strain model Effort-Reward Imbalance Model

Rationale of Present Research A lot had said but yet much has to do, cultural perspective and Organization type are major attributes which should be studied with reference to child care staff. An amalgamation of qualitative and quantitative research technique is required to identified factors of burnout about child welfare staff and to figure out level of burnout prevalence.

Method Objectives To find out the prevalence of Job burnout among child welfare staff. To determine the role of organizational characteristics; organization type,organizational structure, policy manual, staff training and development etc in staff burnout To gauge the moderating role of demographical variable; job experience, marital status, socioeconomic status, gender etc among job staff and tendency towards burnout

Continued.. Sample Considering the focus of study which is meso-level exploration of the performance of staff, residential staff have been selected from three organizations; o Government child welfare organization, o Private child welfare organization o International child welfare organization Both male and female subjects were approached with care of mixed attributes; married, unmarried, divorced, young, adults, different socioeconomic status and job experience. Representation have been given to each organization on these demographics, Instruments o Maslach Burnout inventory o Checklist has been used to identify the OHP practices o Semi structured interviews

Continued.. Procedure Phase I; First phase was conducted to get information about the NGOs structure, objectives, functioning and, this data was compared with the occupational health psychological practices to understand the level of environment provided to facilitate performance of employees.

Continued.. Phase II; There were two basic steps have been taken to complete this phase of study; o Step 1: Total 90 residential staff members have been selected from these organizations, they were given MBI (Maslach burnout Inventory) for screening purpose, so that participants may be chosen for second step of the study o Step 2: 27 participants of research was selected; 3 of high scorer and 3 of low scorer from each organization, as per their score on MBI, for further proceeding of study, these participants were asked for their consent to take part in this study which is aimed at to find out the reasons that may help them to improve the employee performance and overall productivity/ effectiveness of the organization.

Results Assessment Parameters of Child care Organization 1.Organization type (i-e Type, org chart) 2.Organization Objectives 3.Organizational Formulation (Policies, procedures, Job description, etc) 4.Organization Effectiveness and Efficiency (Externals evaluation) 5.Organization Health, safety and security Measures (expected hazards &efforts to control) 6.Organization Facilities (As per job need, as per employee needs) 7.Organization Hiring Criteria(with reference to sample)

Continued..

Conclusion This brief study presented a picture of occupational health psychology practices at Child protection Organizations in Pakistan, It may concluded that nongovernmental institutes are following and observing good practice but in government sector such institutes are ignoring even basic requirements. As per results, large number of employees serving in these Organizations especially involved in line function activities are suffering from burnout and others are at risk of it. Female are more prone towards Burnout, although, education and working experience moderating the relationship. It may infer from the data that child protection Organizations are facing high level of Demand –control and Support issues, demand of the work is so high and is requiring multi dimensional skills, control is very low which make it high strain job, It is also realized by the participants and results are confirming it that support is lacking either of supervisor, colleague or at family level.