Resilience in Community Social Services: an approach from the perspective of professionals

Abstract

The work context of social workers in community social services is characterized by the difficulties and challenges that they face daily in their professional practice. The purpose of the research is to identify in the discourse of the professional implementation of strategies and responses resilient for themselves and organizations in which they work. The information was collected in-depth interviews with twenty-five social workers with extensive professional experience who work in the province of Málaga. After content analysis of speeches and by reference to the model of resilience Grotberg (1995) and the model of organizational resilience Lee, Vargo & Seville (2013), unequal coping with adversity by professionals and their organizations were identified. Thus it is evident as social work professionals overlap resilient to adversity develop strategies that enable them to better adaptation and implementation of unsuspecting targets. On the contrary, are identified in the speech, a series of organizational behavior among which the difficulty of adapting to the changing social dynamics, hurting in achieving the overall success of social intervention.