Self-Care Readings
Nothing happens quite by chance. It's a question of accretion of information and experience.
~ Jonas Salk
You are embarking on a career that is both rewarding and challenging—often in ways you may not now imagine. How, then, do you prepare for the inevitable stresses and strains you are bound to encounter? Don’t wait — start now! Take advantage of the fact that others have trod these grounds before you, and their experience can point you in the right direction. Use these resources to guide your self-care journey and to help your clients get started on theirs. Don’t reinvent the wheel. Take the practical wisdom others have shared and use it. Maybe you too will contribute to this body of knowledge in the future.
Here we offer a selection of materials accessible on the web or generously provided by colleagues. An additional collection of self-care readings is available on our secure UBLearns website, which is accessible to students, staff, and faculty of the UB School of Social Work. To access that website you will need to log into UBLearns and choose “Self-Care for Social Workers” from among your course listings. (If you do not find it listed there, contact us.)
This collection is a work in progress, and new materials will be added in the future as we identify them and obtain permissions for their use. We hope that these articles, along with those on the UBLearns site and the other materials and resources included in the SSW Student Self-Care webpages, will provide you with ideas and the resources to help you begin developing and implementing your self-care maintenance plan. Look through the link labels below and choose the articles of interest to you.
Professional Issues and Concerns
- Traveling Toward a Social Work Degree
- Self-Care for Students
- The Care Giving Personality
- Overcoming Fear of Failure
- Choosing a Therapist
Burnout and Compassion Fatigue
- The Personal Cost of Care
- Three Stages of Burnout
- Communication, Social Support, and Burnout
- Understanding the Sources of Burnout
- Some Family Dynamics of Burnout
- From Professional Risk to Self-Expression
- Compassion Fatigue - The Heavy Heart
