Okuzeka
Social Work vocabulary · Practice Approaches

Burnout

Meaning in social work, with examples

/ˈbɜːnaʊt/nounCore term

In social work, burnout means: A state of physical and emotional exhaustion caused by long-term work stress, often with feelings of detachment and reduced effectiveness.

In Turkish: tükenmişlik, mesleki tükenmişlik

How it is used

A widely studied risk in social work because of high caseloads and emotionally demanding work. Related terms are compassion fatigue, secondary trauma and vicarious trauma. Supervision, peer support and manageable caseloads are discussed as protective factors.

Example sentences

  1. High staff turnover in the team is partly due to burnout.

  2. She reduced her hours before burnout set in.

Common collocations

  • suffer from burnout
  • risk of burnout
  • prevent burnout
  • staff burnout
  • compassion fatigue
  • supervisionRegular protected meetings in which a social worker discusses cases, decisions, workload, learning and wellbeing with a more experienced manager or colleague.
  • caseloadThe number of cases or clients that one social worker or team is responsible for at a given time.
  • reflective practiceThinking carefully about your own work, feelings, assumptions and decisions in order to learn from them and improve future practice.
  • resilienceThe ability to cope with difficulties and recover from them, supported both by personal qualities and by the relationships and resources around a person.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Practice Approaches

Practise with graded reading

Reading at the right level is the fastest way to make new words stick. Pick free English books by level: