Building Resilience in Social Workers: An Exploratory Study on the Impacts of a Mindfulness-based Intervention

Burnout is a frequent and well-documented consequence of social work practice. The literature suggests that mindfulness-based interventions might help develop the mental states and emotional skills that are indicators of resilience. This mixed-methods, non-randomised controlled, exploratory study with 14 social workers in Canada investigated differences in social workers’ levels of stress, resilience, and burnout after a mindfulness-based intervention, compared to a waitlist group. The intervention group was also interviewed about changes in their relationships within the workplace, their perceived sense of mental health, and wellbeing. Results suggested that the mindfulness-based intervention significantly decreased the treatment group’s perceived stress compared to those on the waitlist and continued to decline for 26 weeks post-intervention. Intervention participants reported positive changes in attitudes, perspectives, behaviours, and energy in relation to their workplace relationships with peers and supervisors. Mindfulness-based interventions for reducing stress and building resilience to burnout in social workers and other helping professionals hold promise, and invite further research.     

Brief mindfulness training in the social work practice classroom

Social Work educators are increasingly concerned with discerning how to help students develop the affective, relational, and meta-cognitive skills needed for effective, resilient, and sustainable social work practice. A small but growing literature supports mindfulness training as a path to those ends. However, most mindfulness intervention studies, even those mentioning ‘brief intervention,’ have typically used fairly lengthy training programs, often 2–3 h per week for 6–8 weeks. It is unlikely that already over-committed social work practice classes would devote this amount of class time to these strategies. This concurrent mixed methods study examined whether very brief mindfulness training in undergraduate social work practice classes (100 min over the course of a 3.0 semester credit hour course) would influence outcomes on measures of mindfulness, emotional regulation, and empathy, as well as student perceptions of helpfulness in managing stress and meeting course goals. No significant differences were found on quantitative measures at post-test. However, results of the qualitative analysis suggest that even brief mindfulness exercises in social work practice classes are perceived by students as helpful for managing anxiety, staying present-focused with clients, reducing premature judgment, and feeling safe and connected in the classroom. Implications for social work education are discussed.     

Enhancing Recovery from Trauma: Facilitating a Mindfulness Skills Group on a Department of Veterans Affairs Inpatient PTSD Unit

Mindfulness and acceptance based treatments are being increasingly implemented for a variety of emotional and psychological related problems, including the impact of military and combat related trauma exposure. This article describes a mindfulness skills group as it was implemented on a sub-acute inpatient PTSD Unit at a Department of Veterans Affairs medical center, to demonstrate and explore the role of the mindfulness skills development in a group setting, for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and other trauma related problems.     

Mindfulness-based programme on the psychological health of pregnant women

Problem

Preparation of psychological well-being is an important component of antenatal education for childbirth, but few courses focus on this component.

Exploring the potential contributions of mindfulness and compassion-based practices for enhancing the teaching of undergraduate ethics courses in philosophy

There are numerous ethical theories from which faculty may choose to teach in undergraduate philosophical ethics courses. Whether learning such theories results in ethical behavior change remains an open question. If one of the goals of teaching ethics is to support ethical behavior, then alternative approaches are merited. Within the past decades, there has been a growing emphasis on mindfulness and compassion-based practices in particular, as applied to psychotherapy in the field of psychology. Such findings have bearing on ways in which compassion-based practices might be fruitful in the philosophical ethics classroom. This article will identify issues with the dominant approach to teaching philosophical ethics, focusing on the need for a bridge between theory and action. It will also explore the potential benefits of utilizing mindfulness in the classroom, with a focus on compassion-based practices such as loving-kindness, to contribute to meeting this need to enhance the teaching of undergraduate philosophical ethics.     

Personal and Planetary Well-being: Mindfulness Meditation,Pro-environmental Behavior and Personal Quality of Life in a Survey from the Social Justice and Ecological Sustainability Movement

Employing data from a mailed survey of a sample of ecologically and spiritually aware respondents (N = 829), the study tests the hypothesized relationship between ecologically sustainable behavior (ESB) and subjective well-being (SWB). The proposed link between ESB and SWB is the spiritual practice of mindfulness meditation (MM). In multiple regression equations ESB and MM independently explain statistically significant amounts of variance in SWB, indicating, for at least the study’s sample, that there can be a relationship between personal and planetary well-being. The inter-relationships among SWB, ESB and MM suggest that for specific segments of the general population (e.g., the spiritually inclined) there may not necessarily be an insurmountable conflict between an environmentally responsible lifestyle and personal quality of life. The research reported here also points to the potential for meditative/mindful experiences to play a prominent role in the explanation of variance in SWB, a direction in QoL studies recently highlighted by several researchers (Layard 2005, pp. 189–192; Nettle 2005, pp. 153–160; Haidt 2006).

A (not so) simple dialogue activity

ABSTRACT

This article explores the research on peer-to-peer dialogue in higher education, including the innovative practice of intergroup dialogue and other practices such as nonviolent communication and contemplative listening. I then describe an activity I do with my community college students, in a context where lack of time and other resources do not allow a more resource-intensive dialogue practice. I ask them to experience dialogue with several free, easily available resources, including nonviolent communication, contemplative practice, and public radio podcasts from On Being, then have a conversation outside of class in which they mostly practice deeply listening to someone with different political beliefs than they have. They may make a brief attempt at dialogue or nonviolent communication. I discuss how my activity may accomplish some of the goals of intergroup dialogue and be useful where students are learning about diversity and inequality across social divides, including in social work education and sustainability education. I nest this activity in a course that involves some contemplative practice, to explore how both sustainability education and the social justice component of social work may benefit from contemplative practice. Finally, I detail some other resources about hope and despair that support this activity.     

Mindfulness Training for Social Service Providers in Hawaii: Context and Considerations

Abstract

Few studies exploring outcomes for mindfulness training have specifically focused on social service providers such as case managers, juvenile justice (probation/parole) officers, family court liaisons, substance abuse and mental health counselors, and school behavioral health specialists, among others. This study examined whether social service professionals across various agencies in the state of Hawai‘i would be accepting of mindfulness-based training and practices, and explored their personal practice experiences. Participants (N?=?97) received mindfulness skills training including mindful breathing, mindful walking, and the body scan. Through post-evaluation surveys, practice logs of homework practices, and reflections, they were then asked to reflect on their experiences with the practice and identify potential changes that they would attribute to mindfulness. Interpretative phenomenological and content analyses revealed that participants generally reported a high level of acceptance of the mindfulness training and practices but progress, continuity, and sustainability were slow. Findings provided some indications of mindfulness resulting in salutary effects for social service professionals, but the training structure was problematic. Future research needs to examine how institutional, cultural milieu facilitate or hinder opportunities for social service professionals to embody and embed mindfulness in daily life; this would require multimodal and qualitative methodologies that seek to highlight and understand the live experiences of social service providers.     

The Use of Mindfulness Training to Create an ‘Accompanying Place’ for Social Work Students

Social work students experience emotional stress while having to perform and meet expectations from both academy and field. They may often feel physically and emotionally overwhelmed while struggling to make the time and space to fully process the varied experiences involved. There seems to be an unmet need for an ‘accompanying place’ where thoughts, feelings and dilemmas can be observed in a non‐evaluative way. Mindfulness has evolved lately as an efficient therapeutic technique in therapy. This paper describes a technique that applies mindfulness meditation in a group format in order to create a broader and richer learning experience that answers students' emotional needs. The group met for eight weeks. Its goals were to enhance self‐awareness and increase emotional support in handling field and academic stressors while experiencing different states of consciousness. Findings show that students were able to acquire new knowledge about themselves, experience autonomy in learning self‐containment and regulation, and gain insights regarding their professional self‐concept. Significance for social work training is discussed.     

Mindfulness in Social Work Education

Social work is beginning to explore the role of mindfulness in the education of future practitioners. This article reviews literature from social work education and other disciplines to suggest that there is much that is yet to be explored about mindfulness, its contribution, and the experience and implementation of it into the educational experience. I conclude with some reflections on areas requiring further attention and investigation in the role and teaching of mindfulness in social work education.