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Child protection is a stressful occupation that can result in burnout and job exit for some social workers. This article will focus on the positive and negative impacts of co-worker and manager relationships, reporting on the meaning applied by workers, and on how these relationships impact their ability to manage the challenges of child protection work. Semi-structured interviews with 15 social-workers who left and 15 who stayed reveal the critical importance of relationships at work for either building resilience or contributing to burnout. Recommendations call for employer-level interventions to promote relationship-focused interventions to enhance social worker resilience.

This article presents the findings from a scoping review on the occurrence of applied drama used in social work education. Evidence from the last decade has highlighted the efficacy and use of simulation-based learning and role-play in social work education to prepare students for practice, but less is known regarding applied drama methods. The review focused on identifying the use of applied drama and interdisciplinary learning that exists in social work education. There were fifty-three articles retrieved and forty-eight papers in total included in the review but only nine used applied drama techniques and five of which evaluated or specified the use of theatre of the oppressed. This paper will focus on the methods and findings of the application of drama in social work education, as this area has had less attention than simulation-based learning and role-play methods, which the other thirty-nine articles reviewed addressed. This paper only focuses on the findings relating to applied drama methods and the small but burgeoning interest in the use of theatre of the oppressed approaches developed by Augusto Boal in the 1970s. The review identifies a gap in current research on the use of applied drama and how it might potentially enable further development of skills and competence for social work students.

This research explores the working conditions of social workers around the globe, using a mixed-methods approach. A survey of working conditions and wellbeing was distributed to social workers via email and social media. Results subsequently informed the interview schedule for individual semi-structured interviews with social work leaders from across the world. Results confirm that social workers have among the most difficult working conditions of all equivalent professions, with detrimental effects on services for individuals and communities due to burnout and retention. Suggested solutions include legal recognition of the social work profession, improved management support and better pay and conditions.

Abstract
Social workers play a vital role in the lives of some of the most vulnerable people around the world. However, evidence increasingly shows that social workers across the world are exposed to chronically difficult working conditions. This study seeks to outline the influence of working conditions on well-being of social workers worldwide, and compare whether working conditions and well-being changed across a three-year period via a two-phase cross-sectional survey. The survey aimed to measure these working conditions and well-being at a national level across the world. Results demonstrated significant differences in six of seven conditions measured, with each of demands, control, role understanding, change communication and psychological well-being worsening across time. These changes were particularly mirrored in European social workers. However, North American social work respondents saw improvements in role understanding and relationships with colleagues. Policy makers, professional organisations and employers need to pay attention to these findings and consider methods to be undertaken which can improve on these findings, because without improvements we will see declining working conditions and well-being in the sector, with all of the knock-on effects on vulnerable individuals and families that go along with the decline.

Context: The development of a consolidated knowledge base for social work requires rigorous approaches to identifying relevant research. Method: The quality of 10 databases and a web search engine were appraised by systematically searching for research articles on resilience and burnout in child protection social workers. Results: Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts, Social Services Abstracts and Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) had greatest sensitivity, each retrieving more than double than any other database. PsycINFO and Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health (CINAHL) had highest precision. Google Scholar had modest sensitivity and good precision in relation to the first 100 items. SSCI, Google Scholar, Medline, and CINAHL retrieved the highest number of hits not retrieved by any other database. Conclusion: A range of databases is required for even modestly comprehensive searching. Advanced database searching methods are being developed but the profession requires greater standardization of terminology to assist in information retrieval.

The ageing of the population is pressurising frontline health and social service professionals in two respects: demands are increasing need in the population; and expectations for the length of their working life are changing. For some people the prospect of working longer represents an opportunity for continued social connectivity and meaning; for others, it represents continuation of demanding work patterns which do not support health and wellbeing. In this presentation, we explore some potential consequences of moves to postpone retirement and prolong working lives and challenges in forecasting who might benefit from various policy responses. We present data from a survey of 1300 UK social workers who were asked about their perception of late career and retirement, about their levels of wellbeing and their intentions to leave work. The survey contained open text fields in which participants could describe their perceptions in their own words. Plans and expectations around retirement varied greatly across the sample. Many have no immediate plans to retire, with one participant anticipating dropping to "four days per week in my 70s and three in my 80s", while others had availed of early or flexible retirement schemes. We show patterning in retirement planning by sex, work pattern, area of work and personal circumstances. We found strong associations between some of the reasons identified for retirement and wellbeing indicators in both directions. There was also patterning around the type of organisational provisions which people favoured and those same wellbeing indicators. For example, respondents who favoured retraining for a new role towards the end of their career were more likely to have had sickness absence of up to 20 days in the previous year. We also describe a counterfactual schema for imagining groupings within the population based on the relationship between retirement and wellbeing and test how the data support detection of such groupings. Findings are discussed in terms of the array of policy options available either to government or to employer organisations to safeguard wellbeing on.

AbstractSocial work, like many other human service professions, is ageing. This article reports and discusses the findings of a UK social work survey undertaken in 2018 (1,397 responses). It investigated how organisational policies and individual factors were affecting individual social workers' decisions about working in later life. The survey measured (i) social workers' attitudes to ageing at work and self-reported planning around retirement; (ii) mental health and well-being, quality of working life and home and work interface and (iii) intention to leave work and retirement planning. Statistical analysis enabled examination of how the interrelationship of these factors and relevant individual characteristics interact within the systemic work environment. Findings revealed that all participants had considered factors that might cause them to retire early. Framing the findings in an ecological conceptual model suggests that age-inclusive professional and organisational cultures, age-positive human resource management, support from line managers, fair working conditions and the ability to manage health and well-being, might enable social workers to extend their working lives in line with government policy. These findings provide insights for social work workforce policymakers and for employers to assist in their development of organisational and individual adjustments to sustain well-being in the social work profession.

Social work, like many other human service professions, is ageing. This article reports and discusses the findings of a UK social work survey undertaken in 2018 (1,397 responses). It investigated how organisational policies and individual factors were affecting individual social workers' decisions about working in later life. The survey measured (i) social workers' attitudes to ageing at work and self-reported planning around retirement; (ii) mental health and well-being, quality of working life and home and work interface and (iii) intention to leave work and retirement planning. Statistical analysis enabled examination of how the interrelationship of these factors and relevant individual characteristics interact within the systemic work environment. Findings revealed that all participants had considered factors that might cause them to retire early. Framing the findings in an ecological conceptual model suggests that age-inclusive professional and organisational cultures, age-positive human resource management, support from line managers, fair working conditions and the ability to manage health and well-being, might enable social workers to extend their working lives in line with government policy. These findings provide insights for social work workforce policymakers and for employers to assist in their development of organisational and individual adjustments to sustain well-being in the social work profession.