A Mind-Body-Spirit Framework for Addressing Self-Care in Social Work Education

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.

KEYWORDS:

• Stress-burnout
• scholarship of teaching and learning
• values and ethics

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Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article