Societal factors impacting child welfare: Re-validating the Perceptions of Child Welfare Scale

Objective: This research examines the psychometric properties of the Perceptions of Child Welfare Scale (PCWS) by seeking to understand the differences between workers' perceptions of how society views them based upon job title by revalidating the PCWS with a sample of administrators and clinicians. Methods: Confirmatory factor analysis was utilized to analyze data on 165 administrators and 153 clinical child welfare workers. Results: The final model consisted of three latent variables with ten indicators related to stigma, value, and respect ([X²]=167.6, [p]=0.00; [RMSEA]=0.07; 90% [CI]: 0.06-0.09; [CFI]=0.95; [TLI]=0.95). Discussion: The factors found in the previous study were confirmed using an entirely different sample of child welfare workers. The factors value, stigma, and respect were confirmed across the sample based upon whether the workers were administrators or clinicians. This provides reassurance that measuring how workers perceive they are viewed by those outside the child welfare system does not vary based upon job title.