Almost 2,500 social workers and other professionals working in the sector attended a free Community Care webinar to mark World Social Work Day.
The webinar focused on how to look after your wellbeing and manage secondary trauma, with expert speakers Sass Boucher and Kate Collier of SelfCare Psychology.
During the webinar, Sass and Kate outlined their five pillars of protection model, which outlines behaviours and resources that can help practitioners and organisations mitigate the risk of secondary trauma. These are:
- Awareness of the issue;
- Peer support;
- Self care;
- Supervision, and
- Being trauma-informed.
A full recording of the webinar, plus a written transcript, will shortly be available on our subscription learning sites, Community Care Inform Children and Inform Adults, for all subscribers to benefit from.
Social workers can also access free tools to support wellbeing from SelfCare Psychology’s website.
This year marks 50 years since the first edition of Community Care was published, on 3 April 1974. As part of our celebrations, we made this webinar free to attend for all social workers and social care professionals.
You can keep up to date with all the anniversary content we publish by bookmarking this page, as well as signing up to our free newsletters.
Assistive technology and dementia: practice tips 
A trauma-informed approach to social work: practice tips 
Find out how to develop your emotional resilience with our free downloadable guide 
Develop your social work career with Community Care’s Careers and Training Guide 
‘Dear Sajid Javid: please end the inappropriate detention of autistic people and those with learning disabilities’
Ofsted calls for power to scrutinise children’s home groups
Seven in eight commissioners paying below ‘minimum rate for home care’
Facebook
X
LinkedIn
Instagram
I think the little poll at the top of the page has half-cut options! 😉
The council celebrating social work is a huge kick in the teeth to social workers and an insult that rubs salt in the wound to vulnerable children and adults. The fact that it is staff congratulating staff tells a huge story – why are service users not celebrating social workers? Why is the government as quite as a mouse – perhaps because social work has become an agent of the states very, very nasty agenda. Capitalism and privatisation breeds poverty. Poverty breeds abuse and neglect and hunger. Tory Austerity policies originating in 2009 have made relative poverty (that has existed throughout modern history) rise to the most unacceptable levels imaginable for a self-proclaimed ‘rich nation’…we now have so many more people living in absolute poverty (and of course more million and billionaires than ever). Sad times. Finally, a UN rapporteur this week completely damned the treatment of disabled people in the UK, the governments response at the live hearing was SO SO bad, just repeating sound bites and claiming victories that simply do not exist! All the best social workers I know have left the council to work in the charity sector, in schools or in academia.
This brings back memories of how a colleague a few years ago was upbraided and given a verbal warning for “bringing the service into disrepute” for suggesting cuts to budgets and choosing not to fill vacancies were damaging to users of services and morale of workers. Apparently social work is a politically “neutral” activity. A sentiment well embraced by the politically directed SWE without irony. One correct thought, one correct path, one loyalty, zero autonomy. I pinched that from above colleague.