Work–Life Balance Among Child Welfare Workers: The Role of Job Demands, Organizational Supports, and Childhood Maltreatment Histories

Background and Purpose: In the context of increasing personal and family demands, the capacity to balance work and personal life is essential for sustaining worker functioning, satisfaction, and retention. Job-related organizational factors, including organizational support, job value, work time, and income, significantly influence work–life balance among child welfare workers. Guided by the Job Demands–Resources Model, work–life balance may be shaped by the interplay of job demands (e.g., time pressure, burnout) and job resources (e.g., supervisory and organizational support). Although research directly examining childhood maltreatment histories among child welfare workers remains limited, evidence suggests that personal trauma histories shape workplace experiences. Workers reporting childhood maltreatment demonstrate higher secondary traumatic stress and greater emotional reactivity to case material, as well as lower self-esteem, life satisfaction, and perceived social support. Across helping professions, childhood trauma is also linked to elevated psychological distress and burnout. These findings suggest that workers with maltreatment histories may experience work-related demands differently, potentially increasing risk for diminished work–life balance. This study examined whether childhood maltreatment histories moderate the impact of organizational experiences on the work-life balance of newly hired Florida child welfare workers during the first year of employment.

Methods: Data were drawn from the Florida Study of Professionals for Safe Families, a longitudinal cohort of newly hired child welfare workers (N = 1,500). The analytic sample included frontline workers at Wave 3 (n = 857). Measures included caseload characteristics (tenure, caseload size, difficult cases), worker-level factors (childhood maltreatment history, job satisfaction, time pressure, psychological distress, secondary traumatic stress, self-efficacy, burnout), and organizational factors (supervisory trust, social support, organizational support). A three-step hierarchical regression model examined worker-level (step 1), organizational-level (step 2), and moderation effects of child maltreatment histories (step 3) on work–life balance.

Results: Among 776 workers, 41.7% reported childhood maltreatment histories. The model with main predictors was statistically supported, F_{(12, 761)} = 43.34, p < .001, explaining 45.1% of the variance in work–life balance. Greater time pressure (β = −.22, p < .001) and work-related burnout (β = −.44, p < .001) predicted lower work–life balance, while supervisory support (β = .18, p < .001) and organizational support (β = .18, p < .001) predicted greater work–life balance. Client-related burnout (β = .17, p < .001) positively predicted work–life balance, suggesting a dimension of professional meaning derived from challenging client engagement. The moderation model was not statistically supported, indicating that childhood maltreatment status did not moderate the relationships between work-related factors and work–life balance.

Conclusion/Implications: Findings highlight the central role of organizational context in shaping work–life balance among early-career child welfare workers. Consistent with a demands–resources framework, results suggest that reducing job demands (e.g., time pressure, work-related burnout) while strengthening organizational supports may be critical for promoting worker well-being and retention. The absence of moderation effects indicates that these relationships operate similarly regardless of childhood maltreatment history, underscoring the importance of system-level interventions that benefit the broader workforce.