Benefits of Mentoring Programs for Child Welfare Workers: A Systematic Review

ABSTRACT

With the growing awareness of the need for effective child welfare workforce retention interventions, this review systematically evaluates the ways in which child welfare workers benefit from both formal and informal workforce mentoring programs. Of the 136 documents identified, six met inclusion criteria for the study. Although synthesis of the data demonstrated a lack of consistency across studies, results of varied statistical analysis presented evidence that mentoring programs result in positive personal and career benefits to child welfare workers. These results are relevant to practitioners and administrators who are interested in retaining a competent and stable workforce through effective interventions.

KEYWORDS:

• Management
• leadership and organizational change
• workforce/workplace issues in human service organizations