Date
8-29-2025
Department
School of Behavioral Sciences
Degree
Doctor of Education in Community Care and Counseling (EdD)
Chair
Floralba Arbelo Marrero
Keywords
burnout, child protective service (CPS) workers, job demands-resources (JD-R) model, challenges within the role, emotional exhaustion, agency resources
Disciplines
Counseling
Recommended Citation
Parks, Laurel A., "Child Protective Service Workers and Burnout: A Phenomenological Study Exploring Various Types of Factors that Contribute to Burnout in Rural Virginia" (2025). Doctoral Dissertations and Projects. 7413.
https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/doctoral/7413
Abstract
This transcendental phenomenological study aimed to describe the job difficulties that contribute to burnout for child protective service (CPS) workers at social service centers in Virginia. The theory guiding this study was the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model, proposed by Arnold Bakker and Evangelia Demerouti. The JD-R model states that the more demands one has on the job and the fewer resources available to fulfill those demands, the more likely one is to experience burnout. This study utilized semi-structured interviews to answer the three research questions. Ten child protective service workers from three of the five regions of Virginia participated in this study. Thematic analysis identified three overarching themes and ten subthemes. The three overarching themes identified were challenges within the role, the emotional impact of the role, and the resources of CPS workers. This study adds to the existing literature that burnout in the social services field is an ongoing dilemma, and the emotional deterioration of CPS workers is something that needs more consideration.
