SOCIAL WORKERS’ PROFESSIONAL BURNOUT PREVENTION AND OVERCOMING

Abstract

Abstract. The present article substantiates the topicality of the problem of preventing and overcoming the professional social workers’ burnout. The peculiarityof the work of social workers are determined by the increased emotional saturation and the complexity of interpersonal communication, the management of situations of different complexity levels, which require a specialist in significant psycho-emotional efforts and the ability to prevent the development of professional burnout syndrome. The aim of the article is to substantiate the peculiarities of prevention and overcoming the social workers’ professional burnout. The article used general scientific theoretical methods: analysis of scientific literature on the researched problem, synthesis, comparison and generalization.In the process of empirical research, the method of professional burnout diagnosis was used developed by N.Vodopianova, O.Starchenkova on the basis of the model of K.Maslach and S.Jackson and the method of diagnosing the level of emotional burnout developed by V. Boyko. The analysis revealed that the causes of the professional burnout syndrome are the loss of personal (internal) and social (external) resources; to prevent and overcome the burnout syndrome, it is important to create new or restore lost personal, social psychological and psycho-energy resources that help a worker to counteract the negative effects of stress. Social workers with signs of a burnout syndrome have a special cause-and-effect chain with the following components: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and reduction of personal achievements. The impact of these components is intensified by the following factors: low awareness of the professional burnout problem, lack of theoretical knowledge and practical skills of self-diagnosis, the main signs of professional burnout in the early stages of the development of the syndrome and ways to overcome them. The conclusions show that the features of prevention and overcoming social workers’ professional burnout syndrome are reflected in the complex actions of the head of a social organization, which include: monitoring of the psychological state of the workers, clear explanation of job descriptions, organization of preventive discussion and stimulation of internal motivation, constructive communications, conducting various training sessions, creating a positive moral and psychological climate in the team.