Psychometric Properties and Structural Validity of the Serbian Version of the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory (CBIser)

Copenhagen Burnout Inventory (CBI) is a tool assessing fatigue and exhaustion as the core features of burnout. Despite its wide use and evidence of good psychometric properties, little is known about its structural validity. Therefore, this study aimed to examine internal psychometric properties and the latent composition of the Serbian version of CBI. A sample of 382 child welfare workers engaged in the work with the domestic population and professionals working with refugees and migrants completed a 19-item version of CBIser. Results showed that full-scale CBI despite having good psychometric properties lacks structural validity. A short-form of the instrument was empirically derived and several concurrent confirmatory models found in previous studies were tested. A three-factor model of personal, work-, and client-related burnout showed to be the best fitting one, and the 13-item form of CBI proved to be a structurally valid and psychometrically sound measure of burnout.

The impact of COVID-19 on child welfare-involved families: Implications for parent–child reunification and child welfare professionals

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted children and parents involved in the child welfare system and the professionals working with these families. Using survey data collected August–September of 2020, this mixed-methods study examined the perspectives of 196 child welfare-involved professionals (77 attorneys, 99 caseworkers, and 20 therapists) in the United States about the impact of COVID-19 on parents of origin, children, foster parents, and child welfare professionals. Particular attention was paid to the implications of COVID-19 and associated challenges for parent–child contact and reunification. With respect to professional stresses, more than half of participants worried about their own personal safety and health amidst COVID-19, and more than three-quarters expressed concerns about the safety and well-being of child welfare-involved families. Participants, especially attorneys, expressed concerns about parent–child contact and disruptions to reunification. In-person parent–child visits had all but ceased during the early part of the pandemic, and participants identified barriers to effective virtual visits, including lack of foster parent oversight, technology issues, and children’s developmental stage and/or lack of engagement. Attorneys were especially critical of the cessation of in-person visits and viewed this as a serious threat to child-parent bonds and reunification. Participants, especially child welfare workers, voiced concerns about children’s mental health and educational outcomes amidst the pandemic. Findings have implications for attorneys, child welfare workers, and other practitioners who directly and indirectly interface with child welfare-involved families.

‘We do things that matter’: Humanitarian representations of health and welfare services for forced migrants

The article explores welfare and health practitioners’ representations of work practices and professional values underpinning their engagement with forced migrants within a polyfunctional health service in an Italian metropolitan city. It explores the integrated approach developed to cater for asylum seekers and beneficiaries of international protection’s specific needs. Building on interviews with health professionals and welfare workers, the article aims to critically discuss how concepts of care and responsibility are talked about and what kind of values underpin their work ethics. Humanitarian representations emerging from the narratives of health and welfare workers suggest that care and compassion are asymmetric and inherently racialised emotions and the use of vulnerability to depict service users can work to legitimise problematic practices as well as maintaining a focus on the compassionate saviours, whilst at the same time silencing people in need.

823Suicide of welfare and care support workers: a retrospective mortality study in Australia 2001-2016

Background Emerging evidence suggests that people working in the welfare and health care industry have poorer mental health than other occupational groups; however, there has been little examination of suicide among this group. In this study, we examine suicide rates amongst welfare and care support workers and compare them to rates among human service workers, and all other occupations in Australia. Methods We used data from the National Coroners Information System (NCIS) to obtain records of death due to intentional self-harm between the years 2001 to 2016. We calculated age-standardised suicide rates and incident rate ratios to compare the suicide rates across different occupational groups. Results The age-standardised suicide rate of males is the highest amongst welfare and carers (24.1 per 100,000). After adjusting for age and year of death, we found that men working as welfare workers and carers have a significantly higher suicide rate than men working in other occupations (IRR 1.43, CI 1.2-1.7). Furthermore, male human service workers have a slightly lower rate of suicide than those working in other occupations (IRR 0.73: CI 0.66-0.82). The finding was similarly noted in female suicide deaths, however, the higher suicide rate in female welfare workers was not statistically significant (IRR 1.12 CI 0.9-1.39). Conclusion The suicide rates of welfare and care-related occupations are as high as occupations which are identified as at-risk occupations for male suicide in Australia. Key message There is a need for targeted programs to improve the suicide health literacy among welfare and care support workers.

COVID-19 among Health Workers in Germany—An Update

This is an update of our report on COVID-19 among health and social welfare workers in Germany. Workers’ compensation claims for occupational diseases (OD) are recorded in a standardized database of the Statutory Accident Insurance and Prevention in the Health and Welfare Services (BGW). We analyzed which workers in the health and welfare sector are most often affected by COVID-19. For the different sectors in healthcare and welfare, the number of full-time workers is known (FTW), allowing for calculation of claim rates by sector. The period for data presentation was extended to 3 May 2021 for this update. The cumulative number of COVID-19 claims increased from 4398 by May 2020 to 84,728 by May 2021. The majority of claims concern nursing homes (39.5%) and hospitals (37.6%). Nursing is the profession most often concerned (68.8%). Relative to the number of workers, the claim rate is highest for hospitals (41.3/1000 FTW). Seventy-seven workers died (0.09%) and three hundred and seventy-five (0.4%) were hospitalized. A total of 65,693 (77.5%) claims were assessed, and for 81.4% of these claims, the OD was confirmed. The number of health and welfare workers affected by COVID-19 is high. With most HW vaccinated by now in Germany, within the next few weeks or months, the number of new cases should decrease.

Engaging with Hard‐To‐Reach Clients: Towards the Last Resort Response by Welfare Workers

Client non‐cooperation is a widely recognised problem in welfare services. Being ‘hard‐to‐reach’ is considered a risk especially for the most vulnerable clients, for example in terms of increased homelessness. Such clients pose challenges to social inclusion, and services make some allowances to achieve engagement. However, even a minimum level of cooperation is required from hard‐to‐reach clients. In the context of home visiting, we study welfare workers’ efforts to engage with clients who continuously avoid contact. We examine three services in Finland, England, and Sweden that provide floating support to clients in their own accommodation. Utilising Robert Emerson’s idea of ‘the last resort,’ we analyse how workers justify their decisions to continue or terminate the support with the hard‐to‐reach. The data consist of team meeting recordings and home visit observations. We aim to demonstrate that justifications deployed to make the decision to end the home visiting service or tighten control, draw on ‘last resort responses.’ We identify three types of justifications: retrospective summaries on past failures to reach the client, intensifying remedial actions to engage clients, and characterisations of clients as uncooperative. While such justifications can be seen to draw on shared ethics, they have different ethical implications.