Beginning Country Practice

Abstract

This paper outlines a practice-based model which explains the processes of personal and emotional adjustment commonly experienced by social workers when they take up a job in a rural community. The process of adjustment typically takes twelve to eighteen months and has five phases, namely: disorientation, honeymoon, grief and loss, withdrawal and depression, reorganisation and adjustment. There is a large degree of commonality in the process for all workers regardless of experience, job description or agency function, although some workers are more likely to successfully adapt. Supervisors, administrators and practitioners themselves are offered insights into the very real problems which confront them, as well as some ideas about how to handle them.