Initiatives to Reduce Burnout and Improve Retention Among Social Workers

Dr Charlene Chen asked the Minister for Social and Family Development how the effectiveness of the different initiatives and measures to reduce burnout and retain social workers, including supervision, administrative support and career development, is evaluated.

Answer:

            Our data shows that sector-level retention rate of social service professionals has been stable over the past few years. Social Service Agencies (SSAs) routinely look into their own organisational data to examine reasons for staff attrition and introduce ways to better retain their employees. We do not track the effectiveness of individual SSAs’ efforts.

2.          At the sector level, the National Council of Social Service (NCSS) supports the efforts of SSAs through initiatives such as the Sabbatical Leave Scheme, which has had healthy take up. SSAs have also been tapping on the Professional Capability Grant (PCG) for clinical supervision and the Transformation Sustainability Scheme (TSS) to digitalise processes and strengthen people practices.