Child welfare professionals experience daily stress, trauma, and fatigue. Social services agencies are recognizing how important it is for their employees to focus on self-care and how it can impact their organization, especially with the increasing rates of turnover in this field. This page provides resources that identify guidance, research, and training on how child welfare professionals can focus on self-care.
Development Of A Trauma-informed Self-care Measure With Child Welfare Workers
Salloum & Choi & Stover (2018)
Children and Youth Services Review, 93
Addresses factors and tools that child welfare case managers and supervisors could use to assess, monitor, and improve trauma-informed self-care practices to help professionals who often face high-stress environments.
Examining Self-Care Among Individuals Employed in Social Work Capacities
Miller, Lianekhammy, & Grise-Owens (2018)
Advances in Social Work, 18(4)
Examines the self-care practices of individuals employed in social work capacities.
Taking Care of Yourself: Putting Protective Factors Into Play for Yourself (PDF - 101 KB)
Center for the Study of Social Policy (2015)
Discusses the importance for child welfare professionals to take care of themselves and ways they can use the five protective factors to promote their own well-being.
Professional Wellness
National Association of Social Workers North Carolina Chapter
Provides information and resources to assist and guide professionals in health and well-being.
Self-Care and Professional Quality of Life: Predictive Factors Among MSW Practitioners (PDF - 556 KB)
Bloomquist, Wood, Friedmeyer-Trainor, & Kim (2015)
Advances in Social Work, 16(2)
Explores the effects of self-care practices on professional quality of life and addresses burnout, secondary traumatic stress, and compassion satisfaction among child welfare practitioners.