Developing Resilient Social Workers: Messages from the Field

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.