The New Social Worker Vol. 20, No. 4, Fall 2013 | Page 12

Building Strength and Resiliency:
Tools for Early-Career Social Workers
by Marilyn Lammert, ScD, LCSW-C
of the workshop, they clearly laid out for
me what they needed and wanted:
•
•
•

to know they weren’t alone in feeling overwhelmed and questioning
a safe community in which to share
these feelings and their values
support and help so as to have hope
for the future

Burnout and Vulnerability

O

urs is a rewarding profession—
and a stressful one. It can be
hard to stay positive, because
problems are what we are expected
(and expect ourselves) to solve. These
expectations take a toll and sometimes
result in a process of gradual exhaustion,
cynicism, and loss of commitment.

I believe there are ways to become
more resilient and flourish. Acknowledging vulnerability and using strength-based
approaches are important tools. I hope
to identify resources, creative tools, and
skills early-career social workers can use.
In fact, some of what we know to be helpful to clients can also be helpful to us.

A few years back, I offered a
workshop for early-career social workers where I began by summarizing my
40-plus years as a social worker, noting
that there were only three years I didn’t
like what I did. Two of them were the
first two years out of graduate school.
The room of a dozen new social workers
burst into laughter, one commenting that
hearing this was worth the cost of the
workshop. Although it’s now been more
than two years since that day, I’ve heard
from some attendees that my comment is
still being talked about—because it gave
them hope for the future. Early-career
social workers in particular need more
help than they are given in school—or
as they’re leaving—with finding jobs and
thriving in their first few years out.

They, as well as many who have
been in the field for much longer, have
concerns about competence, have difficulty managing self-doubt, or feel undervalued or helpless in the face of often
intractable problems. At the beginning

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The New Social Worker

I first became interested in the
phenomenon of burnout 45 years ago,

although I didn’t have a name for it at
the time. As I remember, I experienced
it first, and most traumatically, at age
23, while working in a mid-1960s War
on Poverty-funded settlement house in
a midwestern city. At the time, I was
idealistic but soon became disillusioned.
I recall feeling helpless, but I didn’t recognize or couldn’t admit my vulnerability. I didn’t know how to take the next
positive step. Like many drawn to social
work, l liked the idea of fixing people
and systems, but didn’t like the feelings
about what I could not solve or fix.

Tools and Readings

The following tools and readings provide additional resources for knowing
yourself, acknowledging vulnerability, getting support , learning from and finding
positives in difficult experiences, self care, job-seeking, and job changing.

Knowing Yourself
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VIA Signature Strengths Questionnaire (http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/questionnaires.aspx)
Realise2 (http://www.cappeu.com/Realise2.aspx). The Realise2 shows “Unrealised
Strengths,” “Learned Behaviors” (those things you’re good at but that drain your energy)
as well as “Realised Strengths” and “Weaknesses.” Both can be helpful for job search/
performance and career direction and information for increasing energy and sense of
well-being.
The Keirsey Temperament Sorter (http://www.keirsey.com/aboutkts2.aspx)–helpful for job
search/job performance
Personal Values Inventory (Biswas-Diener, 2010, 95-97)
Resource Relevance Checklist (Ibid. 86-87)
Situational Benefactors (Ibid. 92-94)

Acknowledging Vulnerability and Getting Support
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Shame Resilience (Brown, 2007, 268-270)
Peer groups (Guidelines for Setting Up Peer Supervision Groups, 2005; Counselman &
Weber, 2004)

Learning From and Finding Positives in Difficult Experiences
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Appreciative action in stressful situations (Stavros & Torres, 2005, 100-106)
Questions for reframing difficult situations (Kelm, 2008, 173-174)

Self Care and Job-Seeking/Job Changing
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Self-compassion inventory, exercises, and guided meditations (http://www.self-compassion.
org, Neff, 2011)
Creative use of early career years: learning more (e.g., about self-care, about agency administration, clinical training, extra supervision); exploring PhD programs; starting peer
groups; getting help from mentors or life coaches; changing jobs.
Job crafting to suit motivations, strengths, and passions (Berg, Dutton, & Wrzesniewski, 2010)
Assessing values and culture in organizations (Brown, 2012, 174-175)

Fall 2013