Development of a Child Welfare Worker Stress Inventory

Abstract

Child welfare is commonly considered highly stressful work. Given the links among stress, burnout, and the pervasive turnover that plague child welfare, agencies must look beyond simply training workers to better manage their stress. Identifying specific sources of workplace stress is the foundation for targeting organizational efforts to prevent job stress and burnout. In this study we developed and tested a new measure, the Child Welfare Worker Stress Inventory, with a sample of workers from child welfare agencies. The inventory demonstrated high reliability, yielding a Cronbach's alpha of 0.93. Evidence of validity was shown by a correlation of 0.70 between a stress/burnout measure and the stress inventory. The study found that the Child Welfare Worker Stress Inventory shows promise as a practical tool to help organizations better understand and mitigate workplace stressors.