Symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress among Child Welfare Workers Who Experience a Maltreatment Fatality on their Caseload

Abstract

Annually, 1,000–2,000 child welfare workers experience the death of a child client. The child welfare field has paid increasing attention to the impact of workplace trauma events on the psychological distress of child welfare workers. In this article the author assesses the relationship between experiencing a maltreatment fatality and workers' posttraumatic stress among a multi-state sample of 385 child welfare workers. Results indicate that a maltreatment fatality is not associated with higher rates of posttraumatic stress. Among child welfare workers who experienced a fatality, those who feel greater culpability for the death report higher levels of posttraumatic stress. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.

Keywords:

• Child fatality
• posttraumatic stress symptoms
• child welfare workers

Notes

The author gratefully acknowledges that the research presented in this article was funded by the Presidential Fellows Program and the Center for the Advancement of Research and Scholarship, both at Bridgewater State University. The author also thanks Toni Chance and Sandra Hodge for their individual guidance and consultation on this project; and Sean McCarthy for his assistance with coding the data.

^aDenotes chi-square could not be calculated. One cell or more has expected count less than 5.

*p ≤ .05.

**p ≤ .01.

***p ≤ .001.

^p ≤ .10.

*p ≤ .05.

**p ≤ .01.

***p ≤ .001.