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The Importance of Self-Care

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The Importance of Self-Care

Program Transcript

PETER MEAGHER: We have to be good to ourselves to be good to other people. To be at your best as a social worker, you need to be taking care of yourself. You need to be eating well. You need to be exercising. You need to be getting enough sleep. You need to have good social support. And when that's not happening, it gets reflected onto the clients that we work with.

In the sort of minimal way, it could be a lapse of judgment. In a worst case scenario, in my view, is we do something really harmful to a client. We make an inappropriate judgment. We do some sort of inappropriate comment. There was an inappropriate touch or some kind of connection with them that's not appropriate.

DONNA MCELVEEN: Ethically, we should be competent practitioners. We should use best practices. We should keep boundaries. When we began to lack self-care, many of those things fall away I think because we're tired or not focused or frustrated, not kind of keeping work at work. So I believe that when we care for self, we put ourself into a position where we can focus on the things that the ethical code requires.

PETER MEAGHER: Like any profession, but maybe more so with social work-- it's so intense-- you need time away. And I think that can feel like you're abandoning your clients, or you're abandoning your work. It's really towards the service of your work.