Change Communication Strategies in Public Child Welfare Organizations: Engaging the Front Line

Abstract

In public child-welfare agencies, successful organizational change depends on effective internal communication and engagement with frontline workers. This qualitative study examines approaches for communicating planned organizational change among frontline child-welfare workers. Five, 90-minute focus groups were conducted with 50 frontline workers in an urban, public child-welfare agency. Consistent with prior research on change communication in business organizations, two broad categories of communication strategies were described: programmatic (top-down) and participatory approaches. Results suggest that participatory communicative strategies emphasizing employee engagement might be most effective in combination with programmatic approaches that communicate targeted messages about the change.

Keywords:

• child welfare
• communication
• organizational change

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children, Youth and Families, Children’s Bureau (Grant #90CO1104). The findings and discussion do not represent the official view of Children’s Bureau.