Book Review of “At Risk: Social Justice in Child Welfare and Other Human Services” by Karen J. Swift and Marilyn Callahan, 2009, Toronto: University of Toronto Press

The newest book by Canadian social work scholars Karen Swift and Marilyn Callahan is exemplary of how other disciplines can invigorate social work theory. “At Risk” uses child welfare practice as an entry point for exploring the continuing movement away from addressing needs and towards the management of risk in the human services.

The Impact of Job Characteristics on Social and Human Service Workers

The work environment characteristics of job stress, job variety, job autonomy, and supervision are theorized to affect the job satisfaction and organizational commitment of social and human service workers. Most research to date has focused upon the impact of these variables on job satisfaction, with little attention being paid to organizational commitment. To determine the effects these characteristics have on both job satisfaction and organizational commitment, data from a survey of social and human service employees across Northwest Ohio were examined. In Ordinary Least Squares regression, all four job characteristics had a significant impact on job satisfaction, while only job variety and supervision had statistically significant effects on organizational commitment.