Building resilience in early-career social workers: evaluating a multi-modal intervention

It is widely recognised that social workers need to increase their emotional resilience to protect their wellbeing and enhance the quality of their professional practice, but there is little evidence-based guidance on how this might be achieved. This study evaluated a multi-modal intervention that aimed to improve emotional resilience and wellbeing in newly-qualified social workers from children’s services in England. More specifically, it examined whether the intervention enhanced several personal resources associated with resilience (emotional self-efficacy, reflective ability, self-compassion and compassion satisfaction/fatigue) together with the overall level of mental health. A repeated measures wait-list controlled design was utilised. Twenty-five social workers in their first year of qualified practice in children’s statutory services received training over a two-month period. The control group comprised 31 early career social workers also working in statutory children’s services. An online survey obtained data before the intervention and two months afterwards. Evidence was found that the intervention was effective in enhancing some personal resources, as well as psychological wellbeing more generally. The finding that psychological distress and compassion fatigue increased during the study period for the control group raises some concerns. The potential of the findings to inform sustainable, evidence-based interventions to protect and promote wellbeing in early career social workers is discussed.