Teaching Note—Self-Care in Social Work Education: An Experiential Learning Exercise

ABSTRACT

Self-care is an essential social work practice skill that should be taught in social work courses. This teaching note describes the evaluation of an assignment for BSW students (N=48) designed to teach self-care skills. The purpose of this project was to 1) understand students’ conceptualization of self-care and 2) determine if this assignment expanded the breadth and depth of students’ understanding and practice of self-care. These goals were accomplished through an analysis of students’ self-care strategies, using a priori self-care domains, and a thematic analysis of responses to open-ended questions about learning. The most common self-care strategies focused on emotional (43.3%), relational (34.9%), and physical (22.5%) well-being. Learning themes included understanding self-care, awareness of personal self-care, and strategies to use learning in the future. Implications for social work programs include emphasizing the intentionality of self-care, clarifying the scope of self-care, considering negative coping, and facilitating the development of self-care practices.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rebecca G. Mirick

Rebecca G. Mirick is an Associate Professor of Social Work at Salem State University.