COPING IN THE WAKE - A QUALITATIVE EXPLORATION OF SOCIAL WORKERS' REACTIONS TO CLIENT SUICIDE

Abstract

When working with vulnerable clients, the prospect of client suicidal behaviour is a very real possibility that has numerous repercussions on a social worker’s personal and professional lives. Despite this, there was a dearth of research data regarding social workers’ coping with client suicidal behaviour, especially in the local context. As social workers’ coping has a direct impact on both their personal lives as well as professional capability, it is essential to better understand the ways they manage their grief so as to improve supportive infrastructure and resources that facilitate their grieving processes. Incorporating Lazarus and Folkman’s transactional framework of stress and coping and McCubbin and Patterson’s double ABC-X model of family stress and adaptation, a conceptual framework was formulated to explore the following domains: meaning-making, coping strategies and resources, and risk and protective factors in adaptive coping. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with social workers who have worked with suicidal clients (n=7). Study findings revealed the importance of supervision, collegial support, and training in adaptive coping. These findings offer key insights on social workers’ coping with client suicide as well as research and practice implications on how to better support them.