A Research on Stress Management Methods and Policies in Supervising and Assisting Social Workers In-Charge of Protection Work in Central Taiwan

• Main Authors: Lin,Kun-Chih, 林坤志
• Other Authors: Huai-Chen Peng
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2015
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/23513867746610322828

碩士 === 東海大學 === 社會工作學系 === 103 === Three characteristics every social worker needs to have are empathy, passion and responsibility. These qualities help them provide excellent service that wins the hearts of their customers. To ensure satisfactory service from their staff, Social Worker Supervisors must not only lead by example, but also demonstrate the importance of active care in customer service. Social work is considered a high-risk profession in terms of stress; one can easily burnout from chronic work-related stress and high-level of demands from various stakeholders. This is especially true when proper support is not given by the leadership team. The accumulated stress has a negative impact on the workers both physically and mentally, and some signs include headache, weight loss and short-tempered. Unfortunately, these signs and symptoms often go unnoticed until the situation has aggravated gravely. Social Work Supervisors play the role of frontline managers who can closely monitor the interactions of their social workers. From the workers’ body language, tone and service content, supervisors can tell whether or not they are engaged with their work or if they are showing signs of weariness or anxiety. Supervisor should leverage their professional expertise of empathy and sensitivity to care for social worker and vice versa. They should be the first ones to detect work-related stress and offer immediate support to one another. Nevertheless, one’s cultural background, leadership style, role and skills determine supervisory effectiveness. Poor leadership can also be a stress factor of social workers. Democratic leadership, which promotes positive supervisory relationship between Social work Supervisors and their workers, can be a solution to stress discovery and alleviation. Policies on stress management of social workers can help motivate and establish Employee Assistance Program. Encouragement is the fundamental means of triggering workplace motivation and increasing productivity. Timely observation on a regular basis allows supervisors to perceive stress and respond accordingly and appropriately. Their dominant function lies in assisting and caring for social workers; their implicit function lies in creating motivation. Examples of different types of motivation: sharing personal experiences, leading by example, planning activities that promote interpersonal relationship, conducting workshops and encouraging pursuit of further education are motivation of intellectual; giving recognitions and praises are motivation of honor. Other types of motivation including promotion, job rotation, job enrichment task autonomy and staff participation, are ways to reduce workplace stress. Furthermore, the roll-out of EAP assists companies to understand the needs and problems of their staff so they can better respond, and even provide counseling to executive team. The Integration of Professional Social Work Resources is one of the core services the EAP offers. It has always had its focus on serving the disadvantaged and in recently years, migrated towards assisting companies to better provide support their social workers. How effective is EAP in helping with current social workers’ situation, the result of the study shows it all lies in the exertion of expertise in assisting the companies. The research results and findings are listed follows： （1）Stress Management methods and policies depend on positive supervisory relationship. Preferred leadership style is Democratic Leadership. The current flexibility of management keeps talent hidden but does not retain them. Additionally, the execution of strict management should not be used at workplace with high-level stress or risk. （2）Differences do exist between generations. Supervisors must give guidance based on one’s experience and provide appropriate advice at various stages. The focus of supervisors should be on care, companionship, guidance versus the non-existing generation gap of passion towards work. （3）The program offers trainings to help supervisors support their staff, but these trainings do not offer direct support to supervisors themselves. Second, the researchers notice supervisors are unfamiliar with its organization’s incentive programs. The reason for this unfamiliarity can be because they are too focused on their individual cases as frontline managers. （4）One of the motivation methods includes non-official team-building activity that can improve communications and morals. （5）Social work Supervisors have high self-affirmation of their expertise. They don’t necessary need to assist in rolling out the EAP in the Social Work industry, but they can assist the roll-out in individual companies.