Exploring Humor in Child Welfare Casework: Laugh to Get Through It or Cry Forever

Exploring Humor in Child Welfare Casework: Laugh to Get Through It or Cry Forever explores how gallows humor is used among child welfare caseworkers and what the use of humor, and gallows humor, reveals about how employees experience stress and manage their emotions. Caseworkers utilize humor as a method to manage the dilemmas they face in their employment. Humor provides a way for employees to cope with stress and the negative emotions they experience due to these dilemmas. The questions answered within the book are: 1) How do Office of Children, Youth and Families employees (intake department and treatment department) experience humor and gallows humor, and what does that reveal about how they are managing stress and emotions related to their employment? 2) What are the negative and positive effects of the use of gallows humor among individuals, groups, and the organization? 3) Are there any similarities and/or differences in how the intake department and treatment department employees utilize gallows humor? The answers to these questions provide an overall picture of how humor is managed by the individual child welfare caseworker, among groups, and at the organizational level. The authors then provide recommendations for organizational leaders to fully harness the power of humor and minimize the negative components.

Lisa N. Landram is a journalist specializing in Public Safety at the Daily News-Record in Virginia. She is also field director of the Master of Science in Psychology program and adjunct professor at Bridgewater College.

Christian Vaccaro is professor of sociology at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.