Welcome to the UB School of Social Work's Self Care site. The resources in these pages can be thought of as a "Self-Care Starter Kit" appropriate for both students in training and for professionals already working in the field. There are also additional resources that we trust will be helpful no matter where you are on your self-care journey.
The Self-Care Starter Kit was initially developed for UB Social Work students, but it is our hope that these resources will be useful for students and professionals alike. Although the kit does not address all that goes into developing the skills of self-care, it does begin the journey.
We recommend you start with Introduction to Self-Care, followed by Developing Your Self-Care Plan.
This very popular image is a great reminder for all social workers and those in helping-fields, that self-care is important.
You are welcome to use the Self-Care Starter Kit exercises/worksheets without revising them for personal and/or educational (non-commercial) purposes only. We ask that you read over the Creative Commons licensing agreement, let us know that you will be using the materials, include the original citation information that is on them, as well the web address for our site, as an acknowledgement of where it was downloaded from and so people are able to explore our site if they’re interested.
We hope the resources in these pages will be useful as you strive to maintain and enhance your well-being in all the important domains of your life.
We would like to express our heartfelt thanks to all those who have helped us in this effort: the colleagues who generously contributed materials and provided advice on resources, copyright issues, and IT questions; the experts in the field who gave permission to include their materials; the SSW students who provided self-care utilization data and feedback on our materials and original workshop; and our colleagues on the UBSSW Reaccreditation Committee and in the school who provided both informational and tangible support for the development of this program and have incorporated self-care materials and activities in their courses. We are especially grateful to Elaine S. Rinfrette, LCSW-R, PhD for her extensive and essential contributions to every aspect of the development of this program; Shirley Reiser, LCSW and Elaine K. Hammond, LMSW for their far-sighted and widespread efforts to highlight self-care in our school by developing trainings and materials, and through their invaluable contributions to the development of these pages; Dana M. Horne, MEd for designing the self-care (Venn) logo and providing consultation and support; Robert Garlan, PhD for his thoughtful suggestions and text revisions for these webpages; Melissa Dudley, MSW for her excellent research assistance; and David Coppola for his superb work designing and programming the original self-care site webpages.