Self-Care A-Z: Professional Self-Care Tools for Social Workers

by Tracey Kelley Neal, LMSW

     How would you assess your professional self-care competence? As a social work educator and career services professional, I routinely ask my students and colleagues this important question. What’s your response?

Engage in Professional Self-Care

     Lee and Miller, in a 2018 article, describe professional self-care as “the process of purposeful engagement in practices that promote effective and appropriate use of the self in the professional role within the context of sustaining holistic health and well-being” (p.98). Social work education demonstrates your competence, or capacity, to apply social work knowledge, skills, values, and abilities to successfully perform in the field. Self-care competence, including care of self in the professional role, is also critical to your performance and fundamental to ethical social work practice.

     The tips below are designed to support your efforts to build a purposeful professional self-care practice. These tools can be an important part of a more personalized and comprehensive self-care lifestyle.  

Tune In to Professional Self

     Building a purposeful professional self-care plan for yourself begins with awareness or knowing yourself. Tuning in to your professional self is key, because it provides an opportunity for you to stay connected or reconnect to your professional sense of purpose or meaning, encourages awareness about your needs and aspirations, and directs your development intentionally toward your career goals. Here are a few questions you can use to practice tuning in to your professional self.

What is my social work “why”?

     This question invites you to (re)connect with the “why” that motivated you to choose the social work profession. Awareness of how your “why” does or does not connect with your present role and future career goals is a self-care exercise relevant for career management.

What’s the next step in my career pathway?

     Asking “What’s next?” is not an effort to override the priority of the present, but it’s meant to challenge you to move with intention through your career. Taking ownership of your career pathway is an act of professional self-care. Preparing for “what’s next,” whether it’s graduate school, a promotion, or a change in practice setting, involves assessment. Mapping your professional assets helps address your development needs for what’s next.  

What is the ultimate objective I have for my social work career?

     While the question of “what’s next?” addresses short-term professional evolutions, the question of your “ultimate objective” speaks to your long-term career ambitions. This “ultimate objective” might be something that has been clearly with you since you began your social work journey, or it might be something that still needs research and development. No matter how you answer the question, conscientious investment in your professional self and dynamic career planning and maintenance are designed to guide you to this destination.

     Asking these questions matters because the work you do matters, and you matter to the work. Asking them at the beginning of your career can help provide focus to your initial steps and decisions. Asking them regularly throughout your career, especially when you’re feeling bored, unfulfilled, stuck, or ready for change, prompts you to tap into the resources within your self-care practice and your professional community.

Build a Professional Community/Network

     Do you ever feel isolated or alone in your work? Our personal lives aren’t the only place we can experience loneliness. Workplace and career loneliness can have detrimental effects on your performance and health. Building a professional community and network is one professional self-care tool you can use to address loneliness and promote your career pathway. Below are a few specific recommendations for building a professional community/network.

• Nurture meaningful connections within your current professional network.
• Research and seek out strategic opportunities to network with industry professional groups (local and beyond).
• Reconnect with previous mentors and contributors to your social work journey.
• Use the internet and social media to connect with professionals with similar interests/work and generate scholarship related to your specific area/field of interest and career goals.
• Focus on relationship quality, not quantity.

     Energetically cultivating a career passion, while strategically developing a professional skill set for a lifetime, is not without its complexities. But, with intentional support and specific care dedicated to your professional self, you are up for the challenge.

     Discover your potential with professional self-care.

Tracey Kelley Neal, LMSW, is the founder of GROW Development Institute and an adjunct faculty member at the Diana R. Garland School of Social Work at Baylor University. As a social work educator and career services professional, she appreciates the importance of nurturing professional self and building supportive professional networks. She is dedicated to cultivating resources to support the professional development of students, practitioners, and organizations.