Two Sides of One Coin? Relationships Build Resilience or Contribute to Burnout in Child Protection Social Work: Shared Perspectives from Leavers and Stayers in Northern Ireland

Child protection is a stressful occupation that can result in burnout and job exit for some social workers. This paper will focus on the positive or negative impact of co-worker and manager relationships, reporting on the meaning applied by workers, on how these relationships impacts on their ability to manage the challenges of child protection work. Semi-structured interviews with 15 social-workers who left and 15 who stayed, reveal the critical importance of relationships at work for either building resilience or contributing to burnout. Recommendations call for employer level interventions to promote relationship focused interventions to enhance social worker resilience.