Abstract
Turnover rates in the child welfare system have been a longstanding issue within the social work profession. Child welfare agencies throughout the country have not been able to retain qualified child welfare social workers who wish to remain in the field for various reasons. This study examines one county in California, El Dorado, to identify factors that current and former child welfare social workers thought contributed to themselves or other social workers to leave their job. With findings from this research project, it is the hope that management will look internally as well as externally at employees’ needs and issues that perhaps may be addressed internally so less child welfare social workers will chose not to leave El Dorado County.