The Work-Related Well-Being of Social Workers in Relationship-Based Settings: A Literature-Based Exploration of the Importance of Impaired Work-Related Well-Being on Case Outcomes

Andreas Baldschun

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The Work-Related Well-Being of Social Workers in Relationship-Based Settings: A Literature-Based Exploration of the Importance of Impaired Work-Related Well-Being on Case Outcomes

Andreas Baldschun

Medailon autora:

Andreas Baldschun is a licensed social worker and doctoral trainee at the Department of Social Sciences at the University of Eastern Finland. Having trained in social work and social pedagogy, he has worked within several contexts of child protection and adult social work in Germany and Finland. He also participated in the research project on social workers’ well-being. His research interests are the structure of social workers’ occupational well-being, the implementation of occupational well-being in social welfare organisations.

Abstrakt:

OBJECTIVES: This paper provides a deeper understanding of the importance of the social workers’ work-related well-being for successful case outcomes. THEORETICAL BASE: Recent studies on the work-related well-being of Finnish social workers discovered alarming numbers concerning the employees’ decreasing work-related well-being. The reasons for that are located in the nature of social work and, particularly, in the emotionally demanding worker-client relationship in relationship-based settings. METHODS: The concepts of burnout, occupational stress, compassion fatigue, counter-transference, traumatisation, secondary traumatic stress and vicarious trauma are analysed with regard to the source of distress and preventing factors. The findings are linked with the characteristics of relationship-based settings and are exemplarily applied to the Finnish case. OUTCOMES: Work-related well-being is essential for building and maintaining an efficient and constructive worker–client relationship and as an important element in helping service users to find sustainable solutions for their problem. Supervision, specialized training, organizational support, leadership style and emotional strength are discovered as the main factors for preventing impaired work-related well-being. The impaired work-related wellbeing resulting from deficits in the organizational structure and lack of resources, however, cannot be compensated by the discovered factors. SOCIAL WORK IMPLICATIONS: This study suggests the adoption of a multidimensional approach to work-related well-being that takes into account the complex structure of work-related well-being.