Resilience in Social Workers; Compassion, wellbeing and distress: the importance of caring for the self as well as for others

Presented a brief overview of  why social work as a profession is stressful focussing particularly on the nature of the work and the emotional demands of providing compassionate empathic helping relationships in challenging situations. The session provided an overview of a research study which focussed on 370  Independent social workers and reported on the challenges of this work and the factors that contribute to resilience and psychological well-being. The need for resilience and associated competencies of accurate empathy, emotionally literacy and the importance of recognising compassion fatigue was discussed.

The session concluded with some recommendations and an overview of  how resilience to stress can be built and how compassion fatigue can be avoided. 

Presented at the BASW Independents Conference 2018: Staying resilient & informed in times of changing independent practice in London on Monday 5 March 2018.