Who’s taking care of child welfare workers taking care of vulnerable children?
A child welfare worker is often the first person to respond to a child in need and among the last people to handle their case before they’re reunified with parents or placed in a loving, permanent home.
They pick up the late-night and early-morning calls. They juggle 17-hour days. They drive several hours to make sure children in their care — and families within their case load — get the support they need. They advocate for children to school workers, principals, teachers, attorneys and police officers.
These front line workers hold the foster and adoptive community together in many ways. They take care of families and children both seen and unseen.
But who takes care of them? The short answer is: A lot of people — and still not enough.
Their work isn’t just another job. It isn’t just paperwork. These are souls they’re helping steward. They’re responsible for the well-being of profoundly vulnerable children, and for the well-being of the families who open their homes to those kids. And almost every single one of them has a deeply personal sense of calling to the work.
How secondary trauma affects workers
Many child welfare workers were themselves part of the foster care system, or their family or community was impacted in some way by it.
They’re already carrying the weight of a difficult childhood, or close contact with someone else’s difficulty.
They commonly suffer from secondary trauma, as well. Child welfare work involves near-daily confrontation with others’ suffering, and with traumatic events.
Child welfare workers are on the front lines of at least a dozen different difficult — and sometimes heartbreaking — family situations at any given time. That takes a toll.
It makes sense that they struggle with the emotional gravity and complexity of their work.
Just one change of caseworkers for a foster child reduces their chance of a stable, long-term outcome from 74.5% to just 17.5%. These kids simply cannot afford for our case workers or child welfare staff to feel burned out, isolated or traumatized. And we can’t afford to let them feel that way.
The fact is that people who are cared for well can care for other people better. Strong, positive relationships and a positive conception of community are proven to help improve emotional resilience and bolster long-term mental outcomes.
We need to be that community. We can and must provide those relationships.
Support a healthy, resilient child welfare system
Supporting the people on the front lines of child welfare work is a lot simpler than you might think. We host a breakfast once a month for caseworkers, year-round.
There is also an amazing group of people who come together to honor child welfare workers once a year during National Hospitality Week.
Atlanta-based organizations WinShape Homes and Promise 686 recently partnered to provide opportunities for an ecosystem of businesses, churches and individuals in the community who want to help.
In October, multiple events took place around the city. Promise686 and its partner churches hosted a lunch for the Gwinnett County Division of Family & Children Services (DFCS). WinShape Homes blessed Cobb County and Fulton County DFCS offices with meals and care packages. Others provided snacks and gift cards for case managers to pack in their cars for tough cases.
As part of National Hospitality Week, Chick-fil-A provided gift cards to case workers in Georgia and other states. Last year, one case manager shared that she used her gift card to buy a treat for her kids after a long hard day. It was a small act of kindness that moved from Chick-fil-A to her, to her own kids.
Reach out to connecting organizations like WinShape Homes, Promise 686 or even case workers near you. You can also get acquainted with — and befriend — the people running our governmental programs supporting kids and families.
We all have a part to play in supporting a healthy, resilient child welfare system. We all have talents, resources and time that no one else can offer — but we have to show up for it to make a difference.
And if we show up for the welfare workers who manage our most vulnerable children’s cases, they’ll show up better for them.
Callie Priest serves as the director of strategic partnerships for WinShape Homes.
