Working in the Social Services: Job Satisfaction, Stress and Violence

Correspondence to Professor Jan Pahl, Department of Social and Public Policy and Social Work, Darwin College, University of Kent at Canterbury, Canterbury CT2 7NY. Summary A major survey of the social services workforce (Balloch etal., forthcoming), carried out in the Research Unit at the NationalInstitute for Social Work, has produced new data about sourcesof job satisfaction and about the incidence of stress and violence.The survey took place in five different local authorities inEngland, and interviews were carried out with 1276 individuals,selected from four groups of staff: managers, social work staff,home care workers and residential staff. The results suggestedthat those who work in the statutory, social services do experiencemore stress and violence than workers in other parts of thehealth and welfare services. However, different jobs presenteddifferent hazards. In general, home care workers were the mostsatisfied with their jobs, and were also the group least likelyto be stressed or to experience violence in the course of theirwork. By contrast, residential workers, especially those withmanagement responsibilities, were most at risk of both violenceand stress. Men were more likely than women to experience violence,while other groups with a higher than average risk of stressincluded younger members of staff, and managers and social workstaff responsible for elderly people.