It's quite scary to think that as we are giving ourselves to
the profession of social work that there's a large majority of
us who are considering quitting. And Community Care Magazine
online shared some survey results saying that over the
past 18 months, 43.9% of respondents of the survey said
they were considering leaving social work, with 5.5% saying
they already were mulling over quitting.
No one walks into social work to step out of it.
Everyone walks in with the same agenda, which is to make a
difference in people's lives and to keep children and families
safe. So I want to talk to you today
about resilience, about morale, and certainly if you are on the
edge of quitting, this is the episode for you.
Let's talk. I'm inviting you my podcast
listeners to the first UK National Black and Diverse
Safeguarding Professionals Conference.
We're coming together to network, to collaborate, to
create a safe space for each other and to strategize
solutions for those from ethnic groups who are working in public
services here in the UKI am so excited to bring you this
conference and I want you to go to
socialworkcoachinghub.com/events and register to get your ticket.
I'll see you there. It's interesting to think that
whilst we as social workers are spending time giving our all to
children and families, we're looking at ways that we can
protect ourselves and look after ourselves.
And this survey is very clear, and this article was printed in
April this year. It's very clear.
We still have a crisis. We have a crisis with
recruitment, we have a crisis with retention.
And we must get an understanding as a profession as to why this
continues to happen year on, year on year, despite the
research, despite the conferences, despite the
lobbying, there's still fundamental issues that are
happening within the social work profession that is causing us to
step back. And we have to get an
understanding of what's going on.
And most importantly for you, listening, how you can protect
yourself emotionally because it's key that you feel
psychologically safe at work. And once that starts to slowly
keep away, so does everything else.
And along with that comes the thought, shall I step out of
social work? So I want to talk to you about
maintaining your own morale and avoiding burnout.
And we're not talking about burnout as in the physical
burnout that we've talked about before.
We're talking about emotional exhaustion.
I can't say that word. Oh, my Lord, emotional
exhaustion. There we go.
We're not covering the causes of low morale.
We understand what that landscape looks like.
We're simply just going to focus on solutions here.
And one of the first things I want to invite you to consider
is how best to use your supervision to support you.
Perhaps another question is, is your supervision enough to
support you and to meet your needs?
If it's not, you need to take responsibility for that space
because it belongs to you. As a manager, I always said to
my staff, what is it you would like to share with me in
supervision today? How can I best serve you today?
This is your time. Yes, we have the agenda of case
management, but we always ended up spending more time looking at
well-being and the person behind the title than we did the cases
because we know we have to discuss cases.
We know there's a space for that and it's quite clear most of the
time what needs to be done. It often those conversations are
about me as a manager giving authorisation.
So I'm saying that to say this. Use that space for you.
Now, the complexity within that, of course, is the dynamic of the
relationship between you and your manager.
Some of you are going to roll your eyes and some of you are
going to smile. That's just how it goes.
You have to consider that alongside your needs.
And if supervision isn't enough, if it's not effective, if that
relationship is not, I'm trying to find the right word.
If that relationship is not as fruitful as you would like it to
be for whatever reason, perhaps you need to think about what can
support you outside supervision. Sometimes circumstances have to
be accepted for what they are. Sometimes circumstances can be
challenged, so you have to consider what is your
responsibility within the relationship dynamic, within the
supervision protocol and process and think about the best way for
it to serve you. And it may be that you need
coaching, it may be you need therapy, you may need to
consider another form of an outlet to support you.
But either way, that's your responsibility #2 you've got to
set some boundaries for yourself when it comes to maintaining a
morale, preventing the emotional exhaustion.
What are your boundaries? The amount of conversations I
have with social workers in coaching sessions talking about
boundaries. Now I'm coming from a place
where I didn't have any boundaries.
You would have heard this in previous podcast episodes.
My mission was to serve. I put on that Cape every
morning. I was out there with lunch or
without breakfast, you name it. But when I realised, when I
became burnt out, some of you would have heard this story a
million times. But for those that haven't
heard, when I became burnt out, I had to strategize.
I had to take a step back and say, OK, what do I need to do?
What responsibility do I need to take now?
What action is necessary for me when I go back to work, that
this doesn't happen again #3 Find meaning and purpose.
Remember why you stepped into social work.
Remember why you filled in the application to complete your
degree? Sometimes you just need to find
a space to reconnect with your Why.
Very soon I am going to be releasing my brand new social
work coaching online hub where you can access audio, videos and
downloadables to support you with your personal and
professional development. We're going to be starting a
brand new community and I want you to be part of it.
So stay tuned to future episodes where I'll share more about
that. And of course, as always, check
out the links in the podcast notes.
I'd like to share this quote with you, and it's from an
unknown source, but it's so beautiful I wanted to share it
with you. When you feel like giving up,
remember why you held on for so long in the first place.
Sometimes you just need to connect with Why am I here now?
If you listened to the episode last week when we were talking
about stepping up, part of that was that self belief and that
self belief can serve you when you're thinking about is this
the best place for me? Is this the right type of social
work for me? Don't forget there's so many
different types of social workers out there, so many
different types of organisations.
You do not have to continue in local authority work.
There's so many other types of social workers out there, from
mental health to adults to children's to charities, you
name it. So do some research.
If you're feeling like your morale is low, perhaps the team
that you're in is no longer meeting your needs.
And therefore, if it's not meeting your needs, you're going
to struggle to meet the needs of those you're working with.
Eventually it's going to ebb away and eventually that's going
to increase the risk to the children and families.
Sometimes we just need to stop turning the mirror on someone
else and say, well, if they just and if we could change this.
And, and don't get me wrong, some things need to be
challenged. I've done my fair share of
challenging, but there are moments when your morale gets to
a place where it's so low. You have to take responsibility
and take accountability for the decision that you're making for
your life. And one thing I want you to
think about is what is your career plan?
We talked about this last week. I'm going to raise it again.
What is your career plan? Because that can be part of
keeping your morale high. You know where you want to go.
You want to go from social worker to service manager.
How do you get there? What's the next step?
Is it time to be thinking about moving on to the next career
ladder? The next step in your career?
Getting on that ladder? What about your support network?
Building a strong support network is all part of keeping
high morale. Colleagues, peers, friends,
family, coaches, counsellors, groups.
There's all sorts of social work groups on Facebook.
Get involved, get sharing, get the support that you need.
It's almost like you need to think of yourself as if you're
putting yourself on a a plan like we do with children and
families. What are the objectives on the
plan to help you get to a place where you feel safe and happy
and psychologically happy? Safe, right?
Have to think about what is that plan?
What does it look like? What do you need?
The last thing I'm going to share with you here is how you
can create a culture of appreciation and recognition,
firstly within yourself. That means not looking for
validation outside of yourself, and secondly, within your team
or your workplace, particularly if you're a manager.
It's so important to celebrate those small wins and those
milestones and that helps again to maintain high morale.
Usually when you're at low morale you don't even feel
you've achieved anything or you've achieved something and it
hasn't been recognised. And all of these thoughts that
go round in our minds as we are busy with our supermen and super
women capes, eventually it weighs us down.
So here's my challenge to you and a scale of one to 10/1.
Make that a sad face. 10 being the most happy face you could
think of, right? And a scale of one to 10 right
now, in this moment, how would you scale your morale?
The next question is, and I'll leave you with this, what needs
to happen to bring that number up by 1?
What needs to happen to bring that number up by 1?
What do you need to see? What do you need to do?
And that would be a good way of just measuring where you are,
where you want to be, and if you're on track.
And if you continue In that way, you are building your own self
coaching methods to support your morale and prevent the emotional
exhaustion that we are all rone to in the world our social work.
Have a blessed week. I'll see you next week.