Hazards of Our Helping Profession: A Practical Self-Care Model for Community Practice

The social work profession is a helping profession; social workers provide services with the intent to improve life opportunities in pursuit of social justice for individuals, groups, communities, and society as a whole. Social workers are called to work on behalf of the most vulnerable people in our society, and as such, the hazards of our helping profession are abundant. Though the literature offers numerous frameworks that can be used by social workers in a variety of settings, many issues that are unique to community practice settings can lead to professional burnout and compassion fatigue for social workers. At present there are no comprehensive models for self-care that attend specifically to the unique needs of the community practitioner. This article presents the iM-PAACT model, a four-part conceptual framework that helps to fill this gap in the literature. This practical self-care model has been designed specifically for social workers engaged primarily in community practice settings, including the community activist, community organizer, and community-engaged scholar.