Family workers, stress, and the limits of self-care. (August 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Mavridis, Caroline; Harkness, Sara; Super, Charles M.; Liu, Jia Li
• Is Part Of: Children and youth services review. Volume 103(2019)
• Page Start: 236
• Page End: 246
• Publication Date: 2019-08
• Subjects: Family workers -- Occupational stress -- Self-care practices -- Human service agencies; Social work with children -- Periodicals; Social work with youth -- Periodicals; Adolescent -- Periodicals; Child Welfare -- Periodicals; Social Work -- Periodicals; Service social aux enfants -- Périodiques; Service social à la jeunesse -- Périodiques; Electronic journals; 362.705
• DOI: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2019.06.011
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0190-7409

Abstract

Abstract: High levels of work-related stress have been frequently documented among front-line family service providers including social workers, home visitors, and agency staff members. Left unaddressed, such stress contributes to burn-out and job turnover, with negative effects on client families as well as agencies and the workers themselves. In response to this problem, some child and family service organizations have encouraged the use of self-care practices to counteract the inherent stresses of these jobs. The present study reports on descriptions of stress and self-care contained in written portfolios of 99 family workers enrolled in a strength-based training program, the Family Development Credential®. As found in other research, virtually all study participants reported an over-arching sense of stress and anxiety, with specific issues of workload, client problems, and work/family imbalance most frequently mentioned. To deal with their stress, workers described a variety of self-care practices: most common were mindfulness, exercise, social connections, changing self-expectations, and time management. Results show a significant curvilinear relationship between the number of stresses and the number of self-care practices mentioned, such that workers discussing both the lowest and the highest number of stresses discussed fewer self-care practices than workers naming a moderate number of stresses. Although a similar relationship between the level of stress and individuals' ability to take advantage of available resources has been demonstrated for low-income families, to our knowledge the present study is the first empirical demonstration of this principle for people who serve such families. These findings illustrate the limits of individual self-care for dealing with high levels of stress, and suggest the importance of strengthening worker support at the agency level, as well as tailoring stress management programs to the needs of individual workers. Highlights: The most common stresses were overall anxiety, followed by work-related stress. Mindfulness was the most common type of self-care reported. The number of self-care practices declined sharply among the most stressed workers. More stressed workers cited more client, personal, and workplace problems.