Children and COVID-19 Research Library

Child welfare work is inherently difficult, and child welfare agencies are known to experience high rates of turnover. This study sought to expand the existing literature on intention to leave one’s child welfare agency and commitment to child welfare work through examining the coping mechanisms of frontline workers. Having and utilizing healthy coping mechanisms has proved beneficial to child welfare workers in previous research. This paper examined specific coping mechanisms identified in the Comprehensive Organizational Health Assessment and how they were associated with child welfare workers’ intent to leave their agency and their commitment to remain in the field of child welfare during the SARS CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic. Over 250 child welfare caseworkers were surveyed using the COHA instrument. Using both bivariate analysis and linear regression, specific coping mechanisms were identifyed, such as staying present with friends and family, as highly influential and discuss ways to strengthen these areas.

The COVID-19 pandemic has unleashed unprecedented repercussions towards humanity, and in light of all the disruptions, developing countries are particularly hit with a bigger blow. Efforts outside the constraints of bureaucracy are thus needed more than ever in this trying time, and the youth may represent vast yet overlooked potency. Reports and studies continue to tout how the youth of Indonesia are willing to be involved as volunteers during the pandemic. Moreover, our experiences have shown how an organized massive force of youth can help in COVID-19 handling.

The literature on alternative care focuses overwhelmingly on formal, court-ordered placements; voluntary care placements are discussed less frequently. Least attention of all has been given to informal kinship care placements, where a child is cared for by relatives but is not formally in the legal care of state authorities. In Ireland, these placements, when facilitated by state authorities in lieu of a care order or voluntary care agreement, are known by professionals as ‘private family arrangements’. This article explores evidence which shows that the use of such arrangements is motivated partly by a concern for subsidiarity, and partly by necessity: they provide a source of placements in cases where regulatory requirements and a lack of resources would otherwise make the placement challenging or impossible.