Mindfulness-Based Social Work and Self-Care with Social Work Professionals: Replication and Expansion of a Randomised Controlled Trial

Social workers are at high risk of work stress and burnout, with the Covid-19 reported to have amplified this risk. The Mindfulness-based Social Work and Self-Care programme (MBSWSC) has been found to support cognitive and emotion regulation of social workers, leading to improved stress, burnout, mental health, and well-being. This randomised controlled trial (RCT) aimed to replicate and expand the findings of an earlier RCT of MBSWSC, with a wider group of social work professionals (including managers), by evaluating the effects of MBSWSC (n = 29) versus an active control (n = 31). Replication of RCTs acts as an important means by which findings can be confirmed, results replicated, generalisability assessed and processes and applicability improved. When compared to an online active control group, MBSWSC (which was also delivered online) was found to improve stress, emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation of service users, anxiety, depression, well-being, along with a range of mindfulness mechanisms of action which support cognitive and emotion self-regulation. The results from this study evidence the acceptability, effectiveness and durability of MBSWSC, and provide clear guidance that if MBSWSC is implemented across social work services, social workers are likely to experience improvements in these critical social work practice and self-care outcomes. Social work is a stressful profession, with a high number of social workers experiencing burnout. The Covid-19 pandemic made the working conditions that social workers had to operate within even more challenging, with social workers having to take on a number of additional tasks. The Mindfulness-based Social Work and Self-Care programme (MBSWSC) was developed to support social workers to deal with feelings of stress, burnout and to improve their mental health and well-being. MBSWSC was tested against another mindfulness-based programme (MBP) and was found to be better than this programme at improving stress, burnout, mental health, and well-being of social workers. This online programme was only previously trialled with one cohort of social workers to examine efficacy, outcomes, and mechanisms of action. In order to further examine the effectiveness of MBSWSC, we tested it again with a different group of social workers, but expanded the participant group to include a wider cohort of social work professional grades, including managers. We found that when compared to another MBP, MBSWSC improved social worker stress, emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation of service users, anxiety, depression, and well-being. The results from this study further highlight how effective MBSWSC is and that more social workers should have the opportunity to enroll in this programme.