Pathways to Resilience III: Beyond Nature vs. Nurture

Promoting Resilience Among Professionals:

Abstract #191
Practitioner Resilience: A Consultative Approach To Develop And Evaluate A Resilience-Based Workshop Intervention For Novice Health-Care Practitioners
Presenter: Caroline Hudson Co-presenters: Catherine Theodosius, Angie Hart
Abstract:
Consultative approaches to resilience research have been advocated in recent literature (Hart and Beaver, 2013). Novice practitioners (preceptees’) from a local preceptorship programme acted as collaborators, to develop and evaluate a resilience and emotional labour workshop intervention in this study. Preliminary findings are presented to evaluate consultative approaches in practitioner resilience and build the evidence-base for a resilience-based supervisory approach.
Preceptees’ (n=12/36) from two local NHS (acute) hospital’s joined two focus groups. A pre-workshop focus group (FG 1) identified the challenges faced, issues of concern as well as emotional responses to practice. An adaptation of the Resilience Framework (Hart, Blincow and Thomas, 2007) for supervision by Aumann & Matthews (2011) was used to compare themes from a thematic analysis of FG1. 
Themes from FG1 were then theorised and incorporated into the resilience and emotional labour workshop.  Following the workshop a descriptive analysis of the evaluations from all preceptees’ (n=36) attending was conducted. A follow up focus group (FG 2) is planned six months following the workshop to identify any ‘resilient moves’ (Hart, Blincow and Thomas, 2007); evaluate the impact of the intervention on the wider group, and consider the implications for practitioner resilience research and practice more widely.

Abstract #260
Lived Experiences of Resiilence-Promoting Practices Among South African Child Protection Social Workers
Presenter: Elmien Truter
Child protection social workers’ (CPSW) are responsible for protecting vulnerable youth and children.  Youth and children in need of social services are more at risk if their service providers (e.g., CPSWs) fail them, yet CPSWs’ well-being and resultant service-delivery is placed at risk by the hostile nature of their profession.  In response, there have been international calls for the prioritization of CPSW resilience.  Nonetheless, to date, only four empirical research studies have explored resilience processes in CPSWs. Inadequate understandings of CPSW resilience processes thus prompted our exploration of what facilitates South African CPSWs' resilience.  In this paper, we present phenomenological accounts of the processes that facilitate resilience in the lives of 15 resilient South African CPSWs. Findings reveal that their resilience practices are embedded in four differently weighted, but interrelated, processes: practice- and purpose-informing creeds, support systems, constructive transactions, and accentuating the positive.  Our paper provides details of each and comments on how these processes can be applied in reflective supervision sessions.