'Being a social worker... it’s in my DNA': Retaining experienced child and family social workers: The role of professional identity

Cook, Laura L. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9882-2365, Carder, Sara and Zschomler, Danny (2024) 'Being a social worker... it’s in my DNA': Retaining experienced child and family social workers: The role of professional identity. Child and Family Social Work. ISSN 1356-7500

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Abstract

The retention of experienced child and family social workers is a significant issue in the United Kingdom, the United States and Europe. Failure to retain experienced practitioners has serious implications for the protection and support of vulnerable children. Existing research and workforce interventions have focused on the support of early-career social workers to prevent exit. Relatively few studies have examined what can be learned from experienced social workers who have remained in the profession long-term. This study captures the voices of experienced stayers. Data consist of interviews with social workers (n = 58) across 11 local authorities in England who have remained in practice for ≥8 years. Findings suggest that a strong sense of professional identity (PI) sustains social workers and promotes retention. For experienced social workers, staying in the profession long-term involves navigating a series of identity challenges over the course of their career, conceptualized here as Critical Career Episodes (CCEs). Based on these findings, we suggest that retaining experienced social workers involves support to navigate CCEs alongside meaningful opportunities for learning and development. We identify three key factors that support and sustain ongoing PI development and support retention: generativity, specialism and mobility. The article concludes with recommendations to support workforce retention.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Data Availability Statement: Research data not shared. Funding information: This work was supported by the British Academy and Leverhulme Small Grants Scheme (grant number: SRG1819\190066).
Uncontrolled Keywords:	critical career episodes,experienced social workers,professional identity,retention,stayers,workforce exit,health(social science),sociology and political science ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/3300/3306
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Social Work Faculty of Social Sciences
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Child Protection & Family Support Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Centres > Centre for Research on Children and Families
Related URLs:	http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?...
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	12 Sep 2024 14:30
Last Modified:	18 Oct 2024 08:30
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/96747
DOI:	10.1111/cfs.13233

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