"Without Compassion We Don't Have a Social Work Field": A Thematic Analysis Exploring Social Workers' Experiences with Compassion.

PURPOSE: Evidence establishing the importance of compassion in the context of social work practice is emerging. Compassion, stemming from the Latin words com and pati, means to suffer with. Given the proximity social workers have to vast experiences of suffering, compassion may play a central role in providing meaningful care to individuals, communities, and systems. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore social workers' definitions of and experiences with compassion. METHOD: Participants included 12 social workers working across levels of practice in two Midwestern states in the United States. Data were collected via semi-structured interviews. RESULTS: Thematic analysis demonstrated three themes present in the data. Consistent with previous conceptual scholarship, the findings illustrated that compassion is a central component of social work practice. Additionally, results from the study demonstrated that social workers find compassion to be an imperative component of ethical practice and suggested that both barriers to and facilitators of compassion are present across levels of social work practice. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: This study adds to the growing body of social work scholarship exploring compassion and highlights implications for the social work discipline across levels of practice to more overtly center compassion in education, practice, and policy. Further research is needed to better understand multilevel barriers to compassion and develop strategies for overcoming them. Moreover, additional research is needed to holistically understand how to leverage and build upon the facilitators of compassion identified by participants in order to foster compassionate social workers, social work organizations, and systems.

Investigating the Relationship between Trauma Symptoms and Placement Instability.

BACKGROUND: Placement stability while in foster care has important implications for children's permanency and well-being. Though a majority of youth have adequate placement stability while in foster care, a substantial minority experience multiple moves during their time in care. Research on correlates of placement instability has demonstrated a relationship between externalizing behaviors and placement instability. Likewise, evidence suggests higher levels of trauma are associated with increased externalizing behaviors. However, few studies have examined the relationship between trauma symptoms and placement instability. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to investigate whether children with clinically significant trauma symptoms had higher odds of placement instability. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING: Administrative data collected as a part of a summative evaluation for a federally-funded trauma III grant project were used. The sample included 1,668 children ages 5 and older who entered foster care during a 30-month period in a Midwestern state and completed a self-reported trauma screen within 120 days of entering care. METHODS: Hierarchical logistic regression was conducted to examine the contributions of trauma symptoms scores to placement instability, above and beyond demographic characteristics and case characteristics. RESULTS: Results from the final analytic model, which controlled for demographic and case characteristics, showed that children with clinically significant trauma symptoms (i.e., scores ≥19) had 46% higher odds of experiencing placement instability (OR = 1.46, 95% CIs [1.16, 1.82], p = .001). Findings support the need to screen for and treat trauma symptomology among youth in foster care.