An effective workforce begins with addressing the challenges that child welfare professionals may face and focusing on improving recruitment strategies. Child welfare agencies continuously face challenges of recruiting, training, and retaining child welfare professionals. This page provides resources to help agencies and organizations address recruitment challenges, strategies to screen and select desirable candidates, job previews that will show the rewards and demands of child welfare positions, and preservice coursework that will prepare child welfare students for the realities of child welfare work in the hopes of improving organizations approaches and outcomes.
Episode 30: Casework: What It Really Takes
Child Welfare Information Gateway (2018)
Offers guidance and examples from former caseworkers on how to manage time, energy, and emotion for new or future caseworkers, along with tips on how to perform the work.
CFPM Recruitment and Selection Best Practices (w/ Tip Sheets) (PDF - 665 KB)
National Child Welfare Workforce Institute (2017)
Provides information on best practices for recruitment and selection of child welfare staff who will deliver the Child and Family Practice Model with the children and families being served.
A Child Welfare Leader's Desk Guide to Building a High-Performing Agency
The Annie E. Casey Foundation (2015)
Outlines how child welfare agencies can attract and support a highly skilled workforce by discussing specific recruitment strategies.
Five Steps to a Stronger Child Welfare Workforce Hiring and Retaining the Retaining the Right People on the Frontline (PDF - 2,610 KB)
The Annie E. Casey Foundation (2018)
Describes a five-step process that identifies workplace activities most likely to improve organizations.
How Does Turnover Affect Outcomes and What Can Be Done to Address Retention?
Casey Family Programs (2017)
Analyzes factors that may predictive of high turnover to ensure agencies are aware of what can cause high turnover and implement strategies to mitigate such factors.
Intersectionality in Child Welfare (PDF - 271 KB)
National Child Welfare Workforce Institute (2021)
Illustrates the framework of intersectionality and emphasizes the importance of social identities and how they overlap across systems of discrimination and privilege.
Inventory of Innovations: Workforce Development (PDF - 882 KB)
Capacity Building Center for States (2018)
Addresses the essential information about innovative solutions to the challenges faced by State and jurisdictional agencies.
Tips for Recruiting a Post-Boomer Workforce (PDF - 1,379 KB)
Cornerstone (2016)
Discusses strategies to recruit a millennial workforce who do not typically consider Federal, State, or municipal government jobs as a way to build careers. This tip sheet provides hiring strategies to increase millennial job placements in the child welfare sector.