Take part in our research survey into social worker burnout

Community Care and Queen's University, Belfast are undertaking a major scientific study. Participate to make the results as accurate as possible

By Joanna Silman on April 15, 2015 in Honesty, Research, Stand Up For Social Work, Stress, Workforce

Photo: Caden Crawford/Flickr

As part of our Stand Up For Social Work Campaign, Community Care is carrying out what we hope will be the largest investigation of social worker burnout in the UK.

Paula McFadden of Queen’s University, Belfast, has helped us design the survey and will analyse the results. McFadden has already undertaken studies of burnout amongst child protection social workers in Northern Ireland.

Stress levels are rising

Our annual stress surveys have shown stress levels increasing year on year. In 2014 over 2000 social workers responded to our survey and more than 80% said they felt unable to do their jobs properly because of the stress caused by increasing demand, rising vacancy levels and unmanageable caseloads.

Yet these surveys are often dismissed in some quarters as a self-selecting, unscientific representation of the problem.

This time we are using the Maslach Burnout Inventory, a globally recognised, scientific measure of burnout across the caring professions. Questions ask you to rate how often you feel a certain way about your work. It should take around 10 minutes to complete.

Scientific proof of the problem

We hope it will be one of the largest studies of its kind and will help educate ministers, MPs, employers and senior managers on the extent of burnout amongst the profession and the dangers this presents for service users.

In order to gain accurate results we would urge all social workers to spend 10 minutes taking part, even if you do not feel you are suffering the effects of burnout.

Please read the participant information before you access and answer the questions.

Once you have read the information, you can access the survey here.

You can find help and information on burnout and improving your emotional resilience in our free downloadable guide written by experts.

Answers are confidential

All information from the survey is completely confidential and answers cannot be linked back to you.

Stand Up For Social Work and help us create the largest scientific study of social worker burnout. Only with hard evidence can we hope to change the working lives of social workers.

You can join our Stand up for Social Work campaign by: