Russ, Erica

2017

A common discourse used when educating social work professionals is the need to understand and develop strategies for self-care. This is often prompted to counter the potential risk to students and professionals who experience stress, vicarious trauma and burnout through practice experiences. Despite a significant body of research which goes to these risks, it nonetheless indicates the majority of social workers do not succumb to these impacts but instead experience high job satisfaction. Self-care is important as social workers are exposed to complex and difficult circumstances and human distress when working. Yet, there is value in moving the discourse from an individualised, deficit-oriented focus on self-care to reduce risk, to one of developing a broader concept of resilience that is embedded within the organisational culture and which allows students and professionals to work through and overcome the adversity faced in practice. A recent study of child protection workers provides some key messages to inform the development of resilience from the early stages of practice, including field education, through to advanced practice situations.

Challenging Dominant Discourses, p. 28-28

https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/29077

en

Australian & New Zealand Social Work & Welfare Education & Research (ANZSWWER)

Developing Resilient Social Workers: Messages from the Field

Conference Publication

Publication