ABSTRACT
Despite high rates of compassion stress within the field of social work and the growing acknowledgment that self-care is critically important to ethical social work practice and to the practitioner’s overall well-being, social work education has not yet adequately responded to the self-care and wellness needs of students and new professionals, nor has it fully prepared them for the stressful realities of social work practice. Self-care education is essential for student/practitioner success and necessitates innovative programmatic and curricular development. It also entails more discussion and explication of conceptual frameworks upon which self-care education will be designed and implemented. Given that self-care relates to individuals’ unique biopsychosocial needs, as well as their preferred methods of healing and cultural beliefs, this paper calls for a mind-body-spirit framework for self-care education. The need for such a framework is examined and a sample curriculum is presented and discussed.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).