Stress and Pressures in Mental Health Social Work: The Worker Speaks

Two-thirds of councils with social services responsibilities (CSSRs) took part in a UK survey of mental health social workers. A one in five sample of front line workers was drawn, and 237 respondents completed a questionnaire and diary about their work context and content, and their attitudes to their work, their employer, mental health policy and the place of mental health social work in modernized mental health services. The questions, that called for free-text responses, were completed in detail and at length. This paper reports the results of a qualitative analysis of these responses using NVIVO software. The paper is structured around the themes emerging from the analysis: pressure of work; staffing matters; job satisfaction and well-being; recruitment and retention issues; and being valued. The conclusions are that the social workers value face to face contact with service users, and that their commitment to service users is an important factor in staff retention. The most unsatisfactory aspects of their work context arise from not feeling valued by their employers and wider society, and some of the most satisfactory from the support of colleagues and supervisors. Without attention to these factors, recruitment and retention problems will remain an unresolved issue.