MASTER OF SOCIAL WORK

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MASTER OF SOCIAL WORK Christina Cintron BURNOUT AND OCCUPATIONAL STRESS AMONG CHILD WELFARE WORKERS
INTRODUCTION The goal of this survey was to learn about rural social workers' experiences with burnout, stress at work, and agency assistance in order to come up with recommendations for improving retention rates child welfare workers were among the participants. Because of the agency's geographic remoteness, limited resources, and inherent dual partnerships, it was chosen to represent rural areas. One of the agency's two sites has a significantly lower rate of client retention than the other. In spite of the fact that they are in the same rural county, they are managed and run by the same people. As part of an effort to understand why one office had a higher retention rate than the other, social workers in both offices discussed their thoughts on burnout, occupational stress, and agency support. Burnout and occupational stress were found to be identical in both workplace locations, according to the findings of the study. As a result of a lack of training, the social workers reported feeling emotionally exhausted or ineffectual. Social professionals in the office who have a greater rate of retention. The social workers' sense of value and reduced exposure to work-related conflict were two of the factors that contributed to the office's high retention rate. There are specific problems in rural communities that make the assistance offered within agencies more important for social workers' job satisfaction and, as a result, enhance retention rates. Researchers found that recognizing social workers and addressing corporate culture, transformation, and appreciation are all intertwined in a management style that emphasizes social work ideals.
There is a high risk of burnout and secondary trauma for child welfare workers who deal with children and families on a daily basis. Even though few research have studied the benefits of self-care experimentally, self-care is frequently suggested as a therapeutic or protective activity in the face of trauma. To practice trauma-informed self-care (TISC), one must be aware of one's own emotional reactions to working with traumatized clients and devise and implement effective coping strategies, such as seeking supervision, participating in secondary trauma training, working in a team, managing caseloads, and striking a work-life balance. TISC is more likely to be applicable to child welfare workers than other types of personal care. Surveys were administered to a sample of 104 child welfare case managers and supervisors in order to explore the impact of TISC on compassion satisfaction, burnout, and secondary trauma. High levels of burnout (29.8%), secondary trauma (28.8%), low levels of compassion satisfaction were reported by almost a third of the participants in a survey (31.7 percent). Compassion satisfaction and exhaustion appeared to be associated with larger levels of TISC participation, but there was no correlation with secondary trauma. Findings suggest that TISC may be an effective strategy for preventing burnout while also preserving the good work experiences of employees. However, individuals who have been exposed to secondary trauma may require further specialized help in their recovery. As a result of working with traumatized clients, CWWs may suffer from secondary trauma, or compassion fatigue, which refers to the psychological distress and post-traumatic stress symptoms that might occur (Figley, 1995a). However, despite the fact that these notions are related, the term "vicarious trauma" relates more to the cognitive alterations that follow from repeated exposure to trauma groups than it does to the physical symptoms that accompany
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