Abstract
M.A. (Social Work)
Stress is a well-known phenomenon in our everyday lives, and has a serious impact on our personal and social functioning.
Stress is experienced by almost all individuals, especially in their work-environment, and has a huge impact on their functioning, motivation, performance, colleagues and even clients. Within the Department of Social Development there is a lot of red tape, challenges and situations that create stress for the employees on an ongoing basis. If these situations are not handled and managed correctly and effectively through successful stress management, intervention methods, and also support systems, it can prove detrimental to employees on the level of service delivery.
Within the Department of Social Development, social workers are irreplaceable in their roles, as they fulfil the core functions of the Department. They are responsible for the social work services to clients and the public, and also all other duties that go hand in hand in improving their clients’ social functioning. Observations by the researcher in her own work environment (Ekurhuleni region) showed that social workers and other employees are overworked and stressed out, and sick leave is taken regularly for stress-related problems. Some of the current workplace trends have been determined in a pre-study by the author during March/April 2008 (Maré, 2008).
The reason for the study was to determine if social workers in the Ekurhuleni Region experience negative stress, and if it is related to their work. The aim was to discover if the source of their stress is work-related, and if they can successfully cope with this work-related stress and deal with it. The researcher is a social worker in the Ekurhuleni Region and has been in the position of having to cope with tremendous work-related stress in conditions which made coping with it difficult.
With this study, the researcher wanted to investigate the stress experience of social workers and their way of coping with it, in order to develop guidelines from the results that would assist the social workers in effectively handling their work-related stress. These guidelines should not only improve the functioning of the social workers, but also impact positively on the service delivery of the organisation.
Social work is a helping profession in which social workers draws from themselves to be able to assist clients with their problems and stress. This in itself can turn out to be a stressful situation, as social workers ignore their own stress through focusing on the client. The social worker’s own functioning is not as important as the client’s, and therefore the social worker’s needs are forgotten or ignored. The researcher hopes that with this study a positive contribution will be made in understanding the needs of the helper, instead of only focusing on the helpless.