Developing self-care competency among child welfare workers: A first step

Self-care can be integral to assuaging inimical employment conditions experienced by the child welfare workforce. However, few studies have explicitly examined ways to improve self-care competency among this practitioner group. This study employed a retrospective pre/post design to assess the impact of a self-care training for child welfare workers (N = 131) in one southeastern state in the United States. Overall, results indicate child welfare workers were satisfied with the training content and materials. As well, analyses revealed significant increases in knowledge about self-care, confidence in skills to engage in self-care, and values related to self-care. Overall, findings from this study suggest that brief self-care trainings can beneficial to child welfare workers and that more research in this area is warranted.