Death and the child welfare worker

The loss of clients through death is a disquieting event for social workers even when death is a likely occurrence as in settings such as medical facilities or hospices. Child welfare is not generally viewed as a setting in which death is a probable event. While children are sometimes killed by their caretakers, these cases represent a small percentage of families served in public child welfare (Department of Health and Human Services, 1997). Most reports of child maltreatment allege neglect, not physical abuse. However, a closer examination of client groups served in public child welfare reveals that client death may, indeed, occur more often than expected due to the high risk groups served. In this article we conceptualize death in public child welfare from the worker perspective. We highlight two themes that help workers explore the possible impact of client death. The first theme relates to the nature of the relationship the worker had with the client. Some clients are difficult to help and hard to engage in a working relationship. Other clients are motivated to address issues and view the worker as a valuable resource, other clients fall between these two extremes. Negative or positive relationships with clients are likely to lead to different reactions when the client dies. The second theme relates to the type of death. Anticipated versus traumatic deaths have different ramifications for survivors. Traumatic deaths are likely to be more difficult to work through than are anticipated deaths. We explore how these two themes may interact to produce varying degrees of stress upon child welfare workers, and suggest ways of coping with client death.