Emotional intelligence in social work

Biggart, Laura Paule (2018). Emotional intelligence in social work. [Data Collection]. Colchester, Essex: UK Data Archive. 10.5255/UKDA-SN-852431

This interdisciplinary project examines whether emotional intelligence helps professionals in emotionally demanding jobs such as social work to perform well and whether it helps them to manage their anxiety and stress. Emotional intelligence indicates how good someone is at understanding how emotions work, recognising emotions in themselves, recognising emotions in others, managing their own emotions and managing emotions in others. This project aims to assess the influence of Emotional Intelligence (EI) training for social workers in relation to burnout and performance using a randomised control trial. It also aims to produce a psychometric measure of social work performance created from the perspective of social workers, managers, service users and educators. The three year study has four phases: (1) a literature review and focus groups will identify items which tap into behavioural characteristics of social worker performance; (2) will validate a social work performance measure created from phase 1; (3) an emotional intelligence intervention will be designed using elements from existing EI programmes which show effects on outcomes; (4) a randomised control trial will evaluate an emotional intelligence training intervention for social workers and assess its effect on social work performance and stress.

Data description (abstract)

The aim of this research project was to examine the relationship between Emotional Intelligence, stress, burnout and social work practice and also assess whether Emotional Intelligence training for social workers would reduce their burnout rates and improve their practice over time. The study design used a Randomised Control Trial over 12 months collecting quantitative data at 6 time points, two before the Emotional Intelligence Training and 4 after the Emotional Intelligence Training. Twenty-five percent of participants also took part in a qualitative interview. 207 Child and family social workers took part in the study from eight local authorities in the UK.

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