| Abstrakt: |
Social work is an inherently pressured occupation, and a series of empirical studies have begun to identify the many stresses experienced by front-line practitioners. Despite this, social services departments have typically been slow to take positive action to reduce the pressures faced by their employees and to implement effective stress management measures. This is exacerbated by a pathological understanding of the issue at stake which views stress as a personal failing and falls into the trap of ‘victim blaming’, something which social workers themselves would always try to avoid when working with service users. To redress the balance, this article provides a new multidimensional model of occupational stress which targets action not only at the individual, but also at the organisational and cultural causes of stress. Since social workers already possess many of the skills required for effective stress management, moreover, the article concludes with a plea for practitioners to refocus these skills towards coping with their own occupational stress. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER] |
