On Becoming a Professional Social Worker: Stressors and Successes
Keywords:
social work, social support, resilience, self-careAbstract
Social work is an honorable profession, but it may also be a difficult profession considering high caseloads, low salaries, and numerous opportunities to experience stress, burnout, and vicarious trauma. The process of becoming a professional social worker at the graduate level requires considerable time, energy, money, and stamina. Four first-semester MSW students and I, their professor, share our lived experiences and challenges during the Fall 2021 semester at a historically Black university in the midst of the pandemic. Time management, work-life balance, coursework demands, self-care, social support, social justice, and advocacy surface as primary concerns. Our narratives suggest that self-care for graduate social work students is as important as self-care for professional social workers. Graduate social work programs are advised to consider implementing courses or programs that teach social work students how to engage in self-care rather than presenting it as a topic for discussion. Implications for research are discussed.
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REFLECTIONS:
NARRATIVES OF PROFESSIONAL HELPING
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