The retention of residential group care workers

Abstract

This study focuses on the retention of personnel in residential group care. Quantitative and qualitative data are drawn on to establish length of time served in group care; to elicit factors associated with length of time at current establishment; and workers’ expectations about remaining in the service. Our findings suggest strong relationships between time served by respondents at their current establishments, years worked in residential group care, and respondents’ age. A logistic regression analysis was undertaken with age and job satisfaction reliably predicting whether personnel expected to remain in the service. Surprisingly, each unit increase in job satisfaction score was associated with an increase in the odds of respondents expecting to leave group care, or being uncertain as to whether they would stay. Experiencing job satisfaction, therefore, ap- pears to offer no guarantee that workers will remain in the service. Other factors such as the low status of the work; insufficiënt training; and the difficulties experienced in coping with the changing population in group care all feature as retention issues for staff who clearly often view the work as a short-term option only.