Case Assignment Principles for Achieving Worker Well-Being, Organizational Justice, and Casework Quality

Area of Science:

• Social Work
• Organizational Psychology
• Public Administration

Background:

• Child welfare services rely on effective case assignment for optimal outcomes.
• Understanding the principles and experiences of case assignment is crucial for system improvement.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify common case assignment principles in child welfare.
• To explore how supervisors and case managers perceive these principles.

Main Methods:

• Qualitative descriptive study utilizing open-ended survey questions.
• Responses from 59 supervisors and 127 case managers in child welfare.

Main Results:

• Eight case assignment principles were identified: rotation, caseload equalization (workload, complexity, number of families/children), matching to competence/interest, safety, and supervisor discretion.
• Three overarching themes emerged from experiences: fairness/organizational justice, worker well-being, and casework quality.

Conclusions:

• Child welfare case assignment involves diverse principles with varied impacts.
• Simultaneously achieving fairness, worker well-being, and high-quality casework through a single assignment method is difficult.