Dedicated support for caseworkers will help address child welfare staffing shortages
DUBLIN, Ohio—Oct. 3, 2023—Northwoods today announced a new service to help child welfare agencies struggling with worker burnout, turnover and resulting staffing shortages.
Case Aide Services by Northwoods takes on child welfare’s most time-consuming tasks so caseworkers can focus on fostering healthier families without sacrificing their own well-being. Child welfare agencies can use Case Aide Services to outsource certain work, especially administrative tasks, such as requesting medical records or processing referrals for services like therapy or counseling. Northwoods is launching Case Aide Services in partnership with Jackson County Job & Family Services (JFS) in Ohio.
“Case Aide Services provide staff with the ability to reallocate their time and dedicate themselves to focusing on child safety and well-being,” said Tammy Osborne-Smith, director, Jackson County JFS. “As a result, staff are becoming better trained, developing their critical thinking skills, and becoming the ideal caseworkers that we need to have out in the field working with families and children.”
As child welfare agencies across the country continue to feel the effects of staffing shortages and a shrinking pool of quality candidates to fill their vacant positions, leaders are looking to address one of the major underlying causes contributing to the workforce crisis—staff burnout.
While many workers who enter the field expect the job to be stressful, they don’t anticipate the added burden of paperwork and bureaucracy. Yet, 64% of their burnout stems from these work-related causes, according to the National Child Welfare Workforce Institute.
Administrative work will always be important, but it’s simply not where workers want to spend most of their time. Having a team dedicated to organizing and prioritizing administrative work allows workers to focus on what their priorities are: driving meaningful outcomes for families. Agencies that offer this additional support have higher morale and are more likely to keep and attract staff.
“Northwoods’ mission has always been to enable social services workers to focus on what matters—the people they help. Case Aide Services gives child welfare agencies a simple, modern way to support and retain their workers by eliminating the tasks that consume their time and cause burnout,” said Dave Minning, CEO of Northwoods.
Northwoods has spent nearly two decades helping caseworkers and social workers manage, collect, view and share content and data through software solutions that minimize the administrative burden. Case Aide Services adds additional support for workers by removing some of these administrative tasks from their to-do list altogether. Learn more about Case Aide Services at teamnorthwoods.com/CaseworkerSupport.
About Northwoods
Since 2003, Northwoods has focused only on human services. Our tools and services continue to evolve, but we remain focused on being the experts in helping human services agencies do what they do best: helping people. Agencies throughout the country use our software and services across multiple program areas to better collaborate to serve their community. As a result, they maximize productivity, decrease costs, and achieve better outcomes. Nearly 45,000 caseworkers across the country use our solutions. Northwoods is headquartered in Dublin, Ohio.