Turnover at NY Child Welfare Orgs Reaches ‘Jarring’ Levels 

Staff Turnover in New York Child Welfare Agencies Reaches Crisis Levels

By Susanti Sarkar

1. In her five years at the Rubin Home for Boys in Troy, New York, Shelby Quintal has seen countless social workers and childcare staff come and go.
2. As a senior clinician now, Quintal said she often works well past her weekly 40 hours, essentially doing two jobs and getting paid for one.
3. Her duties include counseling children and parents, and case management — scheduling court appointments, supervising family visits, coaching foster youth, and coordinating after-care plans for when they age out.
4. To supplement her income, Quintal, 30, also has a part-time job with the agency that owns the group home, Vanderheyden, providing behavioral health services to foster youth in the surrounding upstate community.

But it’s often still not enough to support her two children, ages 9 and 5, she said. After the pandemic, her rent on an apartment in Watervliet, a city just outside of Troy, nearly doubled. And although she holds a master’s degree in her field, she has repeatedly had to move in with friends to keep her kids housed.

A new compensation report on the New York workforce that cares for children and families through private agencies underscores the urgency. The nonprofit Council of Family and Child Caring Agencies, which produced the report, has collected data on staff turnover and employee shortages from 58 private, nonprofit child welfare agencies across New York State for the past 11 years. This year, “it’s definitely at crisis levels,” said report author Katie Hanna.

• According to a summary of the report released Aug. 1, turnover rates have risen sharply in the last two years. Last year, 42% of caseworkers left their jobs, double the 2020 figure.
• Front-line child care staff in 24-hour residential care facilities had the highest turnover among the roughly 5,500 employees surveyed by the Council of Family and Child Caring Agencies — almost 57%.
• Those positions also had the highest vacancy rate, at almost 20%.

1. Feeding the shortages are low wages. The report found that the average starting salary for a child care worker in New York was roughly $39,000, including in New York City, where there is a much higher cost of living than in the rest of the state.
2. Salary bumps for employees who had invested in master’s degrees earned them only a 6% overall rise.

Kathleen Brady-Stepien, president and CEO of the council that produced the workforce report, called the landscape “completely unacceptable” — not just for the dissatisfied staff but for the clients they serve: traumatized children experiencing ever-changing caregivers in foster care, and relatives battling to rebuild their families against great odds of poverty, domestic violence, and substance abuse. A revolving series of child welfare caseworkers only deepens mistrust and can delay family reunification, experts say.

“Research in the field shows that every time a worker turns over, it can add up to six additional months to a child’s time in foster care,” Brady-Stepien said.

Quintal said she has seen staff turnover hinder the ability of some foster youth to form stable, healthy relationships later in life, professionally or personally.

“They’re struggling with homelessness and unemployment because they just don’t know how to have a conversation,” Quintal said. “The turnover rate directly impacts their ability to build a relationship with somebody and to work on the skills that they need for life.”

— Shelby Quintal

Since the pandemic, worker shortages have become endemic to many sectors of society — with 1.9 million fewer Americans working today, compared to February 2020, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. And although human service employees received a cost-of-living raise in the recently passed New York state budget, they still remain too poorly compensated for the demanding and stressful work they perform, say leaders of agencies reliant on public funding. That leads to burnout and resignation, and makes vacant jobs difficult to fill.

As a result, qualified employees working for nonprofit agencies often leave for unionized government jobs, such as those offered by the New York City Administration for Children’s Services. At that city agency, annual salaries for a typical casework

SDGs, Targets, and Indicators

1. Which SDGs are addressed or connected to the issues highlighted in the article?

• SDG 1: No Poverty
• SDG 3: Good Health and Well-being
• SDG 4: Quality Education
• SDG 5: Gender Equality
• SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth
• SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities
• SDG 16: Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions

2. What specific targets under those SDGs can be identified based on the article’s content?

• Target 1.2: By 2030, reduce at least by half the proportion of men, women, and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions according to national definitions.
• Target 3.4: By 2030, reduce by one-third premature mortality from non-communicable diseases through prevention and treatment and promote mental health and well-being.
• Target 4.7: By 2030, ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including among others through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship, and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development.
• Target 5.5: Ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic, and public life.
• Target 8.5: By 2030, achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all women and men, including for young people and persons with disabilities, and equal pay for work of equal value.
• Target 10.2: By 2030, empower and promote the social, economic, and political inclusion of all, irrespective of age, sex, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, religion, or economic or other status.
• Target 16.7: Ensure responsive, inclusive, participatory, and representative decision-making at all levels.

3. Are there any indicators mentioned or implied in the article that can be used to measure progress towards the identified targets?

• Indicator 1.2.1: Proportion of population living below the national poverty line, by sex and age group.
• Indicator 3.4.1: Mortality rate attributed to cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, or chronic respiratory disease.
• Indicator 4.7.1: Extent to which (i) global citizenship education and (ii) education for sustainable development are mainstreamed in (a) national education policies; (b) curricula; (c) teacher education; and (d) student assessment.
• Indicator 5.5.1: Proportion of seats held by women in national parliaments and local governments.
• Indicator 8.5.1: Average hourly earnings of female and male employees, by occupation, age group, and persons with disabilities.
• Indicator 10.2.1: Proportion of people living below 50 percent of median income, by age, sex, and persons with disabilities.
• Indicator 16.7.1: Proportions of positions (by sex, age group, persons with disabilities, and population groups) in public institutions (national and local legislatures, public service, and judiciary) compared to national distributions.

SDGs, Targets, and Indicators Table