Supporting Social Work Faculty with Mental Health Issues: Implications from a National Study

Overview: Social work academia is fraught with stressors that can significantly tax faculty members' physical and mental health. This paper presents preliminary research findings from a national study that identifies potential solutions to better assist social work faculty with mental health concerns.Proposal text: In addition to stressors encountered by faculty in all academic disciplines, social work educators often face additional personal and professional issues that can sometimes render the job even more challenging (Royse, 2002). The subject matter they teach and their research areas often involve examining sensitive topics that can provoke strong emotional reactions in both students and faculty alike (Straussner, Senrich, & Steen, 2018). In addition to helping students process their reactions, social work faculty – some of whom are survivors of traumatic experiences themselves – must address their own self-care. This task can be challenging in an organizational milieu that is not always sensitive to mental health issues. This can result in social work faculty with mental health issues feeling overwhelmed, misunderstood, and not knowing where to turn to for support. As well, despite their background, not all social work faculty are in a stable work milieu (McClendon, Lane & Flowers, 2019).

In response to this important problem, a national study was launched to ascertain social work faculty members' mental health status, identify specific aspects of the job that negatively impact their mental health, assess the quality of support systems available to them, and explore solutions to help them. As of the writing of this proposal, approximately 350 respondents have completed the survey and shared their thoughts, frustrations, and ideas about social work faculty mental health.

In addition to quantitative data, respondents were asked for qualitative feedback-particularly on solutions they thought would be effective in helping colleagues with mental health concerns (including themselves-as over a third of the sample reported having mental health issues). Preliminary findings identify a number of important themes pertaining to supporting faculty. Some common themes emerging from the data include a lack of validation by administration of faculty stress and mental health issues, the need for more intentional processes of feedback, an emphasis on workplace structural change rather than just self-care, addressing social work faculty making inappropriate remarks and jokes about mental health status, reducing mental health stigma, and a greater normalization of faculty mental health issues in social work academia.

These are just a few of the common themes emerging from the preliminary qualitative data generated by the study. These themes do leave clues about changes that can be made in the organizational milieu of social work departments and schools to better help those "wounded healers" professors who need it. The sheer volume of qualitative comments from the study identifying negative stressors and mental health stigma in social work academia is evidence that a problem does indeed exist that merits further research and addressing. This study hopes to fill an important knowledge gap and this paper aspires to discuss critical factors to addressing this problem.