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“This Isn’t Just about Things, It’s about People and Their Future”: A Qualitative Analysis of the Working Conditions and Strains of Social Workers in Refugee and Homeless Aid

Large parts of Europe have been affected by an influx of refugees and increasing homelessness in recent years. Social workers provide care services for refugees and homeless people, but little is known about their working conditions. The aim of this study was to examine their job demands, resources...

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Autores principales: Wirth, Tanja, Mette, Janika, Nienhaus, Albert, Schillmöller, Zita, Harth, Volker, Mache, Stefanie
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6843662/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31614734
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16203858
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author Wirth, Tanja
Mette, Janika
Nienhaus, Albert
Schillmöller, Zita
Harth, Volker
Mache, Stefanie
author_facet Wirth, Tanja
Mette, Janika
Nienhaus, Albert
Schillmöller, Zita
Harth, Volker
Mache, Stefanie
author_sort Wirth, Tanja
collection PubMed
description Large parts of Europe have been affected by an influx of refugees and increasing homelessness in recent years. Social workers provide care services for refugees and homeless people, but little is known about their working conditions. The aim of this study was to examine their job demands, resources and health strains. 26 semi-structured interviews were conducted with social workers in refugee and homeless aid in Hamburg and Berlin between October and December 2017. The interviews were analysed following Mayring’s qualitative content analysis. Additionally, the job demands and resources of social workers with and without long-term psychological strain were compared. Respondents particularly experienced demands concerning their job content and work organisation, including emotional and quantitative demands. Appreciation expressed by clients and social support from the team served as key resources. Respondents had problems switching off from work, were exhausted and exhibited signs of long-term psychological strain, such as symptoms of burnout or depressive states. Workers reporting long-term psychological strain were more likely to consider themselves as being adversely constrained by legal requirements and to describe inadequate supervision offers and team conflicts. In conclusion, the results indicate the need for job-specific health promotion measures reducing particularly demands concerning social workers’ job content and work organisation and further strengthening their social support.
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spelling pubmed-68436622019-11-25 “This Isn’t Just about Things, It’s about People and Their Future”: A Qualitative Analysis of the Working Conditions and Strains of Social Workers in Refugee and Homeless Aid Wirth, Tanja Mette, Janika Nienhaus, Albert Schillmöller, Zita Harth, Volker Mache, Stefanie Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Large parts of Europe have been affected by an influx of refugees and increasing homelessness in recent years. Social workers provide care services for refugees and homeless people, but little is known about their working conditions. The aim of this study was to examine their job demands, resources and health strains. 26 semi-structured interviews were conducted with social workers in refugee and homeless aid in Hamburg and Berlin between October and December 2017. The interviews were analysed following Mayring’s qualitative content analysis. Additionally, the job demands and resources of social workers with and without long-term psychological strain were compared. Respondents particularly experienced demands concerning their job content and work organisation, including emotional and quantitative demands. Appreciation expressed by clients and social support from the team served as key resources. Respondents had problems switching off from work, were exhausted and exhibited signs of long-term psychological strain, such as symptoms of burnout or depressive states. Workers reporting long-term psychological strain were more likely to consider themselves as being adversely constrained by legal requirements and to describe inadequate supervision offers and team conflicts. In conclusion, the results indicate the need for job-specific health promotion measures reducing particularly demands concerning social workers’ job content and work organisation and further strengthening their social support. MDPI 2019-10-12 2019-10 /pmc/articles/PMC6843662/ /pubmed/31614734 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16203858 Text en © 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Wirth, Tanja
Mette, Janika
Nienhaus, Albert
Schillmöller, Zita
Harth, Volker
Mache, Stefanie
“This Isn’t Just about Things, It’s about People and Their Future”: A Qualitative Analysis of the Working Conditions and Strains of Social Workers in Refugee and Homeless Aid
title “This Isn’t Just about Things, It’s about People and Their Future”: A Qualitative Analysis of the Working Conditions and Strains of Social Workers in Refugee and Homeless Aid
title_full “This Isn’t Just about Things, It’s about People and Their Future”: A Qualitative Analysis of the Working Conditions and Strains of Social Workers in Refugee and Homeless Aid
title_fullStr “This Isn’t Just about Things, It’s about People and Their Future”: A Qualitative Analysis of the Working Conditions and Strains of Social Workers in Refugee and Homeless Aid
title_full_unstemmed “This Isn’t Just about Things, It’s about People and Their Future”: A Qualitative Analysis of the Working Conditions and Strains of Social Workers in Refugee and Homeless Aid
title_short “This Isn’t Just about Things, It’s about People and Their Future”: A Qualitative Analysis of the Working Conditions and Strains of Social Workers in Refugee and Homeless Aid
title_sort “this isn’t just about things, it’s about people and their future”: a qualitative analysis of the working conditions and strains of social workers in refugee and homeless aid
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6843662/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31614734
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16203858
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