Examining the Social Domain of Worker Well-Being: A Mixed-Methods Study of Child Welfare Caseworkers

Background:
Child welfare caseworkers operate within high-demand environments characterized by substantial emotional, cognitive, and organizational pressures, contributing to challenges in workforce well-being and retention. While prior research has identified factors such as job stress, burnout, and organizational climate as contributors to turnover, less is known about how relational supports function in daily practice to shape worker well-being. Guided by a biopsychosocial framework, this study focuses on the social domain of worker well-being, examining the role of supportive supervision, peer relationships, and self-care practices in shaping job satisfaction among child welfare caseworkers.

Methods:
We used an embedded mixed-methods design integrating quantitative survey data (N = 2,000) with data from 24 focus groups (N=196) collected across multiple child welfare agencies. Ordinary least squares regression analyses were conducted to examine associations between supportive supervision, peer support, self-care practices, job stress, caseload, and job satisfaction. Four coders engaged in structured thematic analysis to explore how caseworkers experience and interpret relational and organizational supports in their daily work.

Results:
Supportive supervision (b = 0.226, p < .001), peer support (b = 0.088, p < .001), and self-care practices (b = 0.143, p < .001) were positively associated with job satisfaction, while job stress (b = −0.320, p < .001) and high caseloads (b = −0.127, p < .001) were negatively associated. Supportive supervision demonstrated the strongest positive association, whereas job stress demonstrated the strongest negative association with job satisfaction. Relational supports remained significant even when accounting for job stress and workload. Qualitative findings provided contextual insight, illustrating that supportive supervision functioned as a stabilizing relational structure, while peer relationships offered practical guidance, emotional support, and reduced professional isolation. Self-care was most often described as boundary setting but was frequently constrained by workload demands and organizational expectations, resulting in reactive rather than preventative practices. Variability in supervisory consistency and peer cohesion influenced the extent to which these supports were effective.

Conclusions and Implications:
Findings suggest that worker well-being in child welfare is embedded within relational and organizational contexts rather than solely individual factors. Social support functions as a daily relational infrastructure that sustains job satisfaction despite high job stress. Implications include strengthening supervisory capacity, formalizing peer support structures, and shifting self-care from an individual responsibility to an organizational priority. Efforts to improve workforce stability should address both relational supports and structural conditions, including workload and staffing, to promote sustainable child welfare practice.