Towards an ecologically based intervention to grow professional resilience

Despite high levels of stress and burnout [1] and the recently reported, ‘compassionate care' crisis [2], professional resilience as a strand of resilience research has received relatively little attention. Staff well-being is an antecedent to patient care [3] and this paper will explore the feasibility of a professional resilience intervention, to ‘buffer' the effect of work related stress [4]. Resilience research has begun to apply resilience-focused concepts to supporting professionals in various fields including education [5, 6], social work [4, 7], nursing and midwifery [8, 9, 10, 11 & 12]. However, much of this work is not sufficiently grounded in ecological theories of resilience, as described by Ungar [13]. Adamson, Beddoe and Davys [14] offer a conceptual framework of resilience in social work that is ecologically based, but this does not extend to an intervention, nor has it been applied to other professional groups. This paper will present work in progress of a doctorate study, which links with the resilience work (http://www.boingboing.org.uk/) and the Health and Social Inequalities research programme, co-ordinated by Professor Angie Hart and collaborators. The aim of the thesis is to answer the question, ‘What are the best approaches to support professional resilience?' This paper will draw on the resilience literature across different professional groups, to define the construct of professional resilience, the nature of adversity and to propose an ecologically based intervention to grow professional resilience, otherwise termed as the, ‘Growing Resilience Intervention Tool' (GRIT).