Positive social work education: results from a classroom trial

ABSTRACT

Concerns around student mental health and wellbeing are particularly pronounced in graduate-level social work education due to high rates of adverse life experiences and mental health challenges faced by individuals prior to entering social work careers. Social work educational programs are thus tasked with training vulnerable groups to become social workers who can help their clients, while adequately caring for themselves. This study integrated evidence-informed positive education-based experiential learning activities into a social work course and found students experienced an increase in meaning and optimism from beginning to end of the semester. They were also protected from decreased subjective sense of healthiness and increased loneliness, as experienced by students in a control course. Results demonstrate that social work education can use positive psychology to improve important aspects of student, and future-practitioner, wellbeing. Implications for future research and directions for social work education are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Higher education
• optimism
• meaning
• mindfulness
• positive education
• social work education
• MSW
• burnout
• self-care

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lydia P. Ogden

Lydia P. Ogden is an Assistant Professor at the Simmons University School of Social Work in Boston MA.

Christine V. Rogerson

Christine V. Rogerson is a PhD candidate at the  Simmons University School of Social Work in Boston MA.