Client Violence and Emotional Health Among Child Protection Services Workers.

Area of Science:

• Social Work
• Occupational Health Psychology
• Public Health

Background:

• Child protective services (CPS) workers face significant occupational risks.
• Client violence is a prevalent stressor in high-risk human service professions.
• Understanding the long-term impact of client violence on CPS worker emotional health is critical.

Purpose of the Study:

• To examine the impact of client violence (yelling, threats, physical assault) on CPS worker emotional health (stress, psychological distress, burnout) over three years.
• To assess the moderating roles of job characteristics (time pressure, supervisory support) in the violence-emotional health relationship.
• To analyze the longitudinal trajectories of emotional health and the persistent effects of client violence.

Main Methods:

• Longitudinal study with 1,117-1,122 newly hired CPS workers.
• Six data collection waves at six-month intervals over three years.
• Multi-level mixed effects regression models to analyze the data.

Main Results:

• General stress and personal burnout showed curvilinear trajectories, peaking at 18-24 months.
• Experiencing yelling and threats increased stress and personal burnout.
• All forms of client violence were linked to higher psychological distress; effects remained consistent over time.
• Time pressure exacerbated negative impacts of client violence, while supervisory support buffered physical violence effects.

Conclusions:

• Client violence poses a persistent threat to CPS worker emotional health.
• Workplace interventions, including robust reporting systems and supervisor support, are essential.
• Policies should prioritize protecting CPS workers from client violence and its psychological toll.