Teaching Note—Self-Care in Social Work Education: An Experiential Learning Exercise

ABSTRACT Self-care is an essential social work practice skill that should be taught in social work courses. This teaching note describes the evaluation of an assignment for BSW students (N=48) designed to teach self-care skills. The purpose of this project was to 1) understand students’ conceptualization of self-care and 2) determine if this assignment expanded the breadth and depth of students’ understanding and practice of self-care. These goals were accomplished through an analysis of students’ self-care strategies, using a priori self-care domains, and a thematic analysis of responses to open-ended questions about learning. The most common self-care strategies focused on emotional (43.3%), relational (34.9%), and physical (22.5%) well-being. Learning themes included understanding self-care, awareness of personal self-care, and strategies to use learning in the future. Implications for social work programs include emphasizing the intentionality of self-care, clarifying the scope of self-care, considering negative coping, and facilitating the development of self-care practices.