Social Workers Are Essential - Our Well-Being Is Essential, Too!

by Erlene Grise-Owens, EdD, LCSW, MSW, MRE, and Justin “Jay” Miller, PhD, MSW, CSW

    March is National Social Work Month. The National Association of Social Workers (NASW) designated the theme “Social Workers are Essential.”

What’s in a Word?

     Essential. Synonyms for this word include vital, basic, crucial, key, and elemental. Antonyms include unnecessary, optional, secondary, and luxury. Clearly, the definition of essential connotes distinct value, unequivocal prioritization, fundamental purpose, and necessary attention.

     We’ve long contended that promoting the profession of social work as essential for human rights, social justice, and human/community well-being requires applying those same principles to the practitioners promoting the profession’s aims. That is, promoting the human rights of social work practitioners to assure their (our) well-being is not a secondary concern; it’s a key aspect of just practice. Toward that purpose, for more than a decade, we’ve been assiduously advocating for self-care and organizational wellness as essential commitments of the profession.

     Research has shown that membership in a professional organization can play an integral role in professional well-being. Commendably, NASW dedicated a recent special issue of its journal Social Work wholly to self-care (which we co-edited). In that issue, research from a national study documented that social workers who were part of a professional membership organization, like NASW, were more likely to engage in self-care than those who were not members. This finding is consistent with research about other professionals, such as attorneys and nurses.  

Keeping Our Word

     As part of our advocacy, we’ve consistently called on professional organizations to intentionally and consistently prioritize and promote self-care and organizational wellness. In March 2019, we expressed an explicit message directed particularly to NASW (as the largest professional organization). In our March 2019 blog post, we applauded NASW’s excellent 2008-2009 Policy Statement on Professional Self-Care in Social Work, which asserted that self-care is “essential “ [emphasis added] in the social work profession. This exemplary and important Statement should be required reading for all social workers!

     Yet, after more than a decade, the actualization of this Statement lags woefully behind in pragmatic attention and action. In our March 2019 blog post, we conveyed that NASW’s theme of “elevating social work” must include elevating practitioners’ well-being. We called on NASW (and the profession) to actualize the Policy Statement: Self-care is essential to professional practice.

     In March 2020, we issued this explicit call to NASW: We call for your leadership. Make self-care and organizational wellness explicit in the Code of Ethics. The time is NOW! We emphasized that this change must not be a perfunctory add-on. That is, self-care and organizational wellness aren’t superficial buzzwords. The complexity and importance of practitioner well-being must be conveyed in meaningful, systemic ways.

     To clarify, our body of work in scholarship, teaching/training, consulting, resource development, and so forth attests to putting actions to our commitment to practitioner well-being. To further clarify, our call to NASW is a collegial challenge for moving forward as a profession. NASW responded to our query last March assuring that they were acting on this concern.

Will 2021 Be the Year?

     March, 2021. At this writing, COE updates aren’t instituted…yet. We’re hopeful, though. We know that, according to NASW’s website, the NASW Delegate Assembly considered proposed COE changes that promote attention to self-care and organizational wellness at its November 2020 meeting and again at a subsequent February 2021 meeting. We eagerly await official word of the outcome and finalization of these critical COE changes.

     Meanwhile, the past year has certainly made even more poignantly clear the essential need for attention to professional well-being. As anecdotal evidence, growing research, and practice experience show, practitioner well-being is particularly urgent. The profession’s ethical obligation to attend to this vital concern is even more pressing.

     NASW’s Social Work Month theme: “Social workers are essential.” Yes! Essential. And, we call on NASW (and other professional organizations, including social work education) to consistently communicate the distinct value of practitioner well-being through the unequivocal prioritization of self-care and organizational wellness. Professional organizations have a distinct role and responsibility in providing the leadership for the necessary attention and pragmatic activation.

     More broadly, we hope the confluence of a global pandemic, increasing cultural turbulence, and burgeoning burnout crises gain the necessary attention. All arenas of our profession, including the professional organizations representing us, must prioritize promoting practitioner well-being. Now, more than ever: It’s essential.

Dr. Erlene Grise-Owens, EdD, LCSW, MSW, MRE, is a Partner in The Wellness Group, ETC.  This LLC provides evaluation, training, and consultation for organizational wellness and practitioner well-being. Dr. Grise-Owens is lead editor of The A-to-Z Self-Care Handbook for Social Workers and Other Helping Professionals.  As a former faculty member and graduate program director, she and a small (but mighty!) group of colleagues implemented an initiative to promote self-care as part of the social work education curriculum. Previously, she served in clinical and administrative roles.

Dr. J. Jay Miller, PhD, MSW, CSW, is the Dean, Dorothy A. Miller Research Professor in Social Work Education, and Director of the Self-Care Lab in the College of Social Work at the University of Kentucky. You can follow his work via Twitter @DrJayMiller1.