March 31, 2026

Child welfare social workers play a vital role in the lives of youth in foster care — and while we recognize their dedication throughout the year, National Social Work Month gives us the opportunity to celebrate the profession. This work requires patience, resilience, dedication, and love.

We asked Plummer’s social workers about why they started in the field and many of them felt drawn to this career from a young age. One social worker recalls being in elementary school and supporting her friends in the sandbox by listening to their stories about challenges they faced at home. Another social worker’s journey began from her early experiences babysitting and working as a basketball camp counselor, where she met youth from diverse backgrounds, including many in the foster care system. These experiences opened her eyes to the realities of foster care and inspired her to become a social worker to make a difference. Some social workers began their careers from their lived experiences and personal struggles that sparked a desire to provide others with the support they needed when they were younger.

There are many different reasons for choosing to become a social worker, but they all share one thing in common: the desire to advocate for positive impact and help others heal.

Inside the Work: What Child Welfare Social Workers Do Every Day

Social workers in Plummer Youth Promise’s Group Home residential programs provide a stable, supportive environment where youth can heal from trauma and build the skills they need for the future.

Our social workers teach the youth how to cook meals and teach them how to manage a budget for buying their groceries. This can look like trips to Market Basket after helping the youth create a shopping list, or a trip to the bank to deposit a check received from a part-time job. Sometimes the life skills we teach may seem like easy tasks that we take for granted, such as establishing daily hygiene routines and remembering to brush twice a day. The reality is that for some youth in foster care that experienced disruptions in childhood like transitions between placements, these routines got lost along the way.

Social workers in our Community Apartments help young adults in the foster care system as they take their first steps of living independently. We help the youth find their first apartment, purchase furniture, and pay rent. The social workers also provide guidance in developing essential life skills like budgeting, cooking, and managing daily responsibilities, while also offering consistent emotional support and mentorship as they navigate living on their own.

Our social workers strengthen the youth’s emotional well-being through trauma-informed therapy that focuses on helping youth process past experiences, build emotional regulation skills, and develop healthy coping strategies.

Across all of our programs, the social workers at Plummer collaborate every day to help create a safe, nurturing environment for the youth and help them strengthen relationships with family and build lasting connections with supportive adults, helping them find permanency (a safe, stable, emotionally-secure parenting relationship). We search and identify family members across the youth’s family tree and other important adults in their life such as past teachers, coaches, or community members. By building a supportive network, we help youth process past experiences, rebuild trust, and develop a sense of belonging.

Challenges Child Welfare Social Workers Face

Social workers are passionate, dedicated professionals whose work creates real change in the world. But passion alone does not make anyone invincible. Social work can be a highly stressful career that can be demanding and emotionally challenging. Burnout is especially common in the social work field. According to a study published in the Delaware Journal of Public Health, 73% of frontline social workers reported elevated levels of emotional exhaustion.

“It can be tough some days to stay passionate in this field. The stories we hear are heavy. We constantly come up against systemic barriers to addressing client needs, and we are often pulled in many directions at once,” shares Domina, Program Manager of Young Adult Supported Living.

Social workers can experience both emotional and physical exhaustion from helping others heal. They can face an unbalanced caseload and often work past the standard 40-hour work week. Our residential program social workers work on weekends and evenings to accommodate the youth’s school schedule. The social workers in our Intensive Foster Care program provide 24/7 support to help foster families through emergencies and urgent situations. If a child is facing a crisis and a foster parent needs guidance to walk them through it, our social workers are there to support them. This work requires immediate support and a lot of dedication.

It can also be hard to stay positive when social workers are faced with systemic problems that can only be solved by policy change. Challenges such as poverty, housing, access to food and other supplemental government programs can be blocked by issues in policy and leave both the social worker and client frustrated by the situation. It makes social workers feel powerless and also creates external pressure as they stand up to the challenge of finding the best solution for their clients’ needs.

The same emotional investment that makes social workers so effective can also blur the line between dedication and overextension.

Tips for Social Workers

Compassion fatigue occurs when social workers feel emotional and physical exhaustion from continuously supporting others through trauma and stress. Taking care of yourself is so important before you can help others. We asked our social workers to share tips and tricks about how they continue to stay passionate about this difficult work.

• Setting Boundaries: To protect their mental health, it’s important for social workers to establish boundaries between their work and clients. Recognize that you cannot control every outcome and that your role is to guide and support.
• Supporting Each Other: Building strong relationships with other social workers and team members helps create space to talk through challenges and support one another. A strong team can make difficult days feel more manageable.
• Making Time to Recharge: Self-care is essential to help restore energy and prevent burnout over time. Whether it is spending time with family, getting outside, or taking a moment to pause, carving out time to recharge is important. Make sure to keep your body nourished and hydrated. Exercise is an excellent way to manage stress and be healthy.
• Practicing Self-Compassion: Social workers often hold themselves to high expectations. It is important to recognize that this work is complex, and progress does not always happen quickly. Giving yourself grace during difficult moments can help sustain long-term well-being. Seeking support, including therapy, is part of caring for yourself. In a field centered on supporting others, seeking help for yourself should feel just as important.
• Staying Connected to the Impact: Reconnecting with the impact of your work can be a powerful reminder during challenging moments. Whether it is a young person reaching a milestone, building trust, or gaining confidence, these moments reflect the importance of the work.

The Power of Impact in Social Work

What keeps social workers motivated is the impact. Helping youth build life skills, strengthen relationships, and find permanency through lasting, meaningful connections is what sustains their passion. Studies show that 91% of social workers still feel positively about their influence as service providers despite burnout (Delaware State University, 2024). This impact is what continues to ground social workers, even during the most challenging moments.

During a tough week, a social worker in our Winter Island residence received a call from a former resident. The young man thanked her for believing in him when he struggled to believe in himself. Moments like this keep social workers grounded and remind them that their work matters.

Another social worker reflects on helping reunite a mother and son. During visits, the young person would embrace their mother and simply breathe her in. In those moments, their entire body would relax, as if a sense of safety had returned. After a year of hard work, the child was able to safely transition home.

Experiences like these reflect the power of connection, patience, and persistence in creating lasting change, and serve as a reminder that keeps social workers grounded in the impact of their work.

Thank you to Our Social Workers

At Plummer Youth Promise, we see this impact every day. Our social workers support youth through challenges, celebrate their progress, and help them build the connections that lead to permanency and belonging. During National Social Work Month and throughout the year, we recognize the dedication and resilience it takes to do this work. Supporting youth starts with recognizing the social workers who make it possible.