Stress Leave and the Social Worker

If you work in a busy social work office, it's likely that a good portion of your co-workers have taken stress leave at some point or another.

Here are some things that could have triggered it:

• Working with a particularly challenging client whereby you feel that your mental, emotional or physical health has been compromised
• Having been given a difficult decision by management which you must carry out, even if it goes against your ethics
• Working too much overtime without getting enough time off
• Not taking needed vacations and carrying the unused portions over to the following years
• If you are in an office with a very high turnover rate and you are one of the more experience workers left, it is likely that your caseload will significantly increase
• Dealing with a personal family issue or medical condition/illness that often interferes with your work
• Clashing with co-workers, supervisors or management whereby you feel like you have no control over your job
•  Having to deal with one crisis after another at work whereby you never get a mental break
• Often listening to the traumatic stories of others which in turn traumatises you and makes you feel helpless
• Being in the wrong social work job which does not match your skills, abilities or values
• Being blamed by management or clients when something goes wrong when you tried to do your best
• Limited training opportunities which means you are left to deal with situations that you do not know how to handle
• Not getting support from family members/friends about your field of work i.e. them questioning your choice of profession or criticising you about the nature of social work

There are many more things that could be added to this list depending on the social worker's personal experience and what they have witnessed other social workers go through.

After social workers experience enough of these triggers they often hit a wall where they know that they HAVE to have a break.  At this point there is no choice, no deliberation or questioning.  The social worker needs to stop working for a period of time to retain their sanity.  They may be devastated or ashamed when they realise this but it is IMPERATIVE that they seek help before the situation get any worse.

It might be useful to write out your feelings in a journal and then present it to the doctor when you are becoming concerned about the amount of stress in your life.  The doctor may recommend medication, counselling, a stress leave or that you change jobs.  The stress leave could range to a couple of weeks to a month or even longer.  The doctor will provide you with a note to give to your employer.  If you do not feel comfortable with your employer knowing it is due to stress, then ask the doctor to be very general when writing the note.  Once you are on leave, your work should not pressure you to return beforehand, ask when you are going to get better, or ask for a lot of details about your illness.  Only give your employer information that you are comfortable with.  Although stress is common in the field of social work, it's hard to tell how your employer will react.  I have also heard stories of employers telling employees confidential medical information about other social workers.  You just never know and you have to protect yourself.

During your stress leave try not to be too hard on yourself.  You can let things slide for a little while.  Don't worry if your home isn't perfectly clean or if you act pretty much like a homebody.  This is the time for you to rest and recharge.  It is also an important time for self-reflection.  Ask yourself the big questions: what really caused me to go on stress leave - was it just an unfortunate serious of events, or could I see this coming for a long time?  Am I in the right area of social work?  Are there other areas of my life that contributed to this stress?  How do I need to change my life so I can avoid this situation again?  What type of professional help do I need to support me right now?  What do my closest friends and family think?  Do they honestly believe that the position I have right now is wrong for me?  What about the entire social work field - can I truly handle the daily emotional aspects of the job and the other mental and physical risks that go along with it?

You may not get all your answers within the period of time that you are on stress leave.  And that's ok.  Overall, you have to take care of yourself first before you can help others.  Sometimes we take jobs with the best intentions and they are just not right for us.  And worst off, sometimes after all the education it takes to become a social worker we realise we are in the wrong field.  It can be extremely painful to realise we made such a big mistake but it's part of life and it only leads to personal self discovery.  You may learn that you like the idea of helping people in general but do not want to know all their intricacies and problems.  That's ok.  I truly believe that there is a spot for each of this in this world and it just takes time to figure out our place.