Solutions

Many youth-serving agencies are pessimistic about making meaningful change to the system. Solutions such as equitable salaries, professional training, and opportunities for advancement are often seen by administrators as unattainable luxuries — wonderful to have, but impossible to fund.

What is often overlooked in this calculation, however, are the even higher costs to agencies of not reforming the workforce. High turnover, non-stop recruitment and training, and lost expertise have a devastating impact on agencies. In 2008-2009, New England Network for Child, Youth and Family Services, a PYWA partner, conducted a study of workforce challenges facing children’s mental health providers in New Hampshire. This study found that, conservatively, "an agency that retains six frontline workers who would otherwise have quit is 'earning' about $15,000 a year — money that could be put toward increasing salaries or improving benefits."