What makes a good learning culture? The role of professional development among child welfare workers

Pari Shah Thibodeau, In Young Park, Annie Zean Dunbar and Amy He

Children and Youth Services Review, 2023, vol. 150, issue C

Abstract: Positive organizational culture, which includes a supportive learning culture, is essential to a healthy child welfare workforce. Learning culture entails how workers learn from each other and transfer knowledge and represents the ideological values of openness, flexibility, and innovation in the work environment. A positive learning culture influences the application of learned knowledge from training to practice as well as helping workers more effectively retain their knowledge and implement it into practice. However, few studies draw from theoretical frameworks to identify factors that support and enhance an organization’s learning culture, particularly within the child welfare setting. Addressing this gap, this study applies tenets of the social learning theory to explore the relationship between preparation and training as well as ongoing professional development with learning culture among child welfare caseworkers (N = 1,790). Using secondary organizational health data collected through a multi-site child welfare workforce project, study findings indicate that preparation for work and professional development are positively associated with learning culture. Findings help build the evidence for the need to provide relevant preparation for work and professional development opportunities in child welfare as a pathway to building a supportive learning culture. Implications for child welfare education, training, and practice applications are discussed.

Keywords: Child welfare; Workforce; Social learning theory; Learning culture; Professional development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S019074092300169X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:150:y:2023:i:c:s019074092300169x

DOI: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2023.106974

Access Statistics for this article

Children and Youth Services Review is currently edited by Duncan Lindsey

More articles in Children and Youth Services Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().