Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/why-do-directors-burnout
• "One day I suddenly realized I didn't care if we won the latest battle with the Welfare Department. I was just worn out after five years of fighting and hassling over every penny."• "It's a hopelessly devitalizing job - you're constantly giving of yourself and seldom getting anything in return."
• “If someone offered me the greatest salary in the world and tagged it onto a director's job, I wouldn't touch it."
These remarks of former child care directors highlight a serious problem in the field �"director burnout. A survey revealed that the average directors stay on the job less than three years (Abt Associates, A Study in Day Care, 1971). Such a high turnover rate is clearly not an encouraging factor for individuals who hope to build a career in the child care field; nor is it healthy for centers that must continually break in new directors; nor is it helpful to the field, as we are always losing our most experienced advocates.
To determine why the burnout rate among directors is so high, Exchange conducted interviews with 15 former child care directors. This article will summarize the factors that caused these directors to quit.
The six factors outlined below emerged from ...