Job satisfaction and engagement of child protection social workers in Gauteng

Abstract

Child protection is one of the most critical fields in social work. It involves protecting children from any form of abuse and neglect in continuum levels of care: awareness, prevention, statutory and reintegration services. Although job satisfaction and engagement studies have been conducted across various sectors, limited studies in child protection services are available. The study aim was to quantitatively analyse job satisfaction and how it correlates with work engagement for social workers involved in child protection at the Gauteng Department of Social Development. An online survey questionnaire which constituted MSQ and UWES scales was distributed and 77 participants responded. Collected data were quantitatively analysed to understand the relationship between job satisfaction, work engagement and demographic characteristics. Correlation analysis showed several relationships between study variables. A favourable association between job satisfaction and work engagement (r =.714, n=77, p.001) was discovered using the Pearson correlation coefficient. A significant regression was discovered between job satisfaction and work engagement (F (1, 75) = 77,788, p <.001), with an R² of .509. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) established a statistically significant difference between race and extrinsic satisfaction at the p <.05 level in extrinsic satisfaction for the four age groups (F (3,73) = 2.205, p = .09). Job satisfaction was found to be related to work engagement. This study's social workers were engaged and satisfied at work, which is similar to the findings of prior studies.