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Title of Systematic Narrative
Review
Factors associated with staff retention
in child welfare
Abstract
Context:
The difficulty of retaining staff in child welfare settings is a chronic phenomenon.
Turnover of child welfare workers has a detrimental impact on service users and
carers in terms of disruption to service delivery. The organisation is also adversely
affected by retention issues, from a financial perspective as well as the loss of
staff expertise. The complex nature of child welfare work requires a robust,
consistent and skilled workforce, and support mechanisms to promote this should
be implemented from the outset of child welfare social workers' careers.
Methods employed in the review:
Rigorous searches were completed on three databases, on 14.02.2020:
PsycINFO
Social Services Abstracts
Social Care Online
The search formula consisted of three concept groups; 'Influencing Factors' AND
'Staff Retention' AND 'Child Welfare'. Index and text terms included:
"Organisation* Intervention" OR "Training Intervention" OR "Human Resource
Intervention" OR "Intervention OR Program*" OR "Scheme*" OR "Train*" OR
"Incentive*" OR "Factor*" OR "Organisation Factor*"
AND
"Staff Retention" OR "Retention" OR "Turnover" "Staff Turnover" OR "Burnout" OR
"Intention to Leave" OR "Intention to Stay" OR "Retain"
AND
"Child Welfare" OR "Child Protection" OR "Child* Services" OR "Child* Protective
Services" OR "Child Maltreatment" OR "Child Abuse".
Filters Applied: Peer reviewed journal, Publication Limit - year range 2015-2020,