Hurley, Dermot and Kirwan, Gloria
(2018)
Exploring resilience and mental health in services
users and practitioners in Ireland and Canada.
European Journal of Social Work.
ISSN 1369-1457
Abstract
Social work practitioners face significant challenges in their professional
lives when advocating for marginalised and disadvantaged people who
face deep structural inequalities, lack of resources and inaccessibility to
social and health care services. Many service users are long-suffering,
dispirited, and demoralised without hope for a better future. This is
particularly the case in community based mental health services where
social workers provide frontline counselling and advocacy to individuals
with serious and persistent mental illness. Prolonged adversity takes a
toll on the resilience of the service user while social work practice,
aimed at counteracting such structural adversity, takes a toll on the
resilience of the practitioner. Too often, community mental health
agencies fail to recognise this toll and do little to support the resilience
of social work practitioners. This study looks at practitioner perspectives
on resilience and explores the idea of relational resilience as a buffer
against burnout and compassion fatigue. The paper identifies themes
from qualitative interviews with social workers on community mental
health teams (CMH) in Ireland and assertive community treatment teams
(ACT) in Canada who are involved in front line mental health services.
The words ‘service user’ and ‘client’ are used interchangeably to reflect
common usage in the two locations.
| Item Type: |
Article
|
| Keywords: |
Resilience; mental health;
vicarious resilience; |
| Academic Unit: |
Faculty of Social Sciences > Applied Social Studies |
| Item ID: |
11175 |
| Identification Number: |
https://doi.org/10.1080/13691457.2018.1530644 |
| Depositing User: |
Gloria Kirwan
|
| Date Deposited: |
09 Oct 2019 10:54 |
| Journal or Publication Title: |
European Journal of Social Work |
| Publisher: |
Taylor & Francis (Routledge) |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| URI: |
|
| Use Licence: |
This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available
here |
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