ABSTRACT
This scene is not unique to social workers or to this agency. With the circumstances and contexts changed slightly, Karen could just as easily be a teacher, nurse, minister, therapist, or childcare worker. Her agency could just as easily be a school, hospital, church, counseling center, or residential treatment facility. Each of these is a caregiving organization – an institution
whose members directly provide for people who seek healing, growth, ministry, learning or support of one kind or another. What is unique to these organizations is how the work itself puts a special stress on individuals. This is what gets people and organizations in trouble, causing typical problems like burnout and turnover, lack of teamwork, and uneasy relations between administrators and direct caregivers. This book focuses on the particular stress of caregiving work, its influences on the people and organizations who do that work, and what they can do about it.
