Improve how you meet this standard
How leaders can ensure their organisation provides a safe work environment that promotes wellbeing, satisfaction, and performance.
Identifying job aspects detrimental to wellbeing is essential. A study of child and family social workers in England from 2018 showed that factors like long hours, role conflict, and heavy workloads reduce satisfaction and add pressure. Social workers leave due to high workloads and unsupportive cultures. Manageable caseloads, supportive cultures, and less paperwork encourage them to stay.
The Social Work Organisational Resilience Diagnostic (SWORD) framework introduces five Key Foundational Principles (KFPs). They aim to cultivate a strong culture that supports wellbeing. They help create the conditions for each KFP:
The framework helps employers identify what ‘good’ looks like and guide actions to reduce stress, prevent burnout, and support wellbeing and retention. It has six key areas:
This framework highlights the critical actions for a supportive work culture. Leaders could ensure wellbeing interventions are:
Co-design involves input from all levels. It improves policy relevance and uptake compared with top-down approaches.
This is the list of research and evidence sources used to produce this section. Publicly available links are included.
GOV.UK (2019). Longitudinal study of child and family social workers
Research in Practice (2021). The SWORD video learning resource.
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