Conceptualizing Sustainable Practice in Trauma-Related Work: Reflections From the Field

Summary Working with refugee-related trauma has been identified as one of the most challenging fields of social work practice. Self-care has been endorsed as the protection for practitioners against vicarious trauma and burnout, which have a high association when working with refugee-related trauma. This paper argues that social work must look beyond this perspective, towards more sophisticated comprehensions of care, which cultivate the ability to remain well in work for the longevity of careers. This is best described as sustainable practice. Through semistructured interviews practitioners working with refugee-related trauma were asked to reflect on how they had developed sustainability in their practice. Findings While each practitioner expressed unique perspectives and approaches that they drew on to form sustainability, there were common threads which wove through practitioners’ experiences. Sustainable practice was multifaceted, resting upon a foundation of connection, introspective awareness and processing, spirituality, ethics, learning, and growth. Applications This study provides insight into how these aspects of sustainable practice can be harnessed and taught, while offering opportunities for future research to continue to develop a sustainable model of care to support social workers in direct practice.