In this second bonus episode, Rich, Tim and Charlotte build directly on Part 1, turning their attention to the four remaining ideas from Rich’s blog on resilience in social work and exploring how these play out in practice.

The conversation moves beyond individual productivity and into the ethical and emotional costs of working under sustained pressure. Drawing on Vikki Reynolds’ work, the episode explores burnout not as a personal failing, but as a response to spiritual pain, moral distress and ethical trespassing – the harm that occurs when social workers are repeatedly required to act against their values within constrained systems.

Together, they reflect on how time pressure, risk management and organisational demands can quietly erode meaning, solidarity and hope, and why self‑care alone is never enough. Instead, the focus shifts to collective ethics, justice‑doing, and mutual accountability, asking what helps social workers remain human, connected and sustainable in the work.

The episode closes with a reframing of resilience – not as coping better alone, but as finding ways to work in solidarity, uphold shared values, and resist the pull towards isolation, cynicism or burnout in systems that are often set up to make ethical practice hard.

Vicki Reynolds: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Justice-Doing-Intersections-Power-Vikki-Reynolds/dp/0648154521/ref=asc_df_0648154521?mcid=4f50e58863e23cc9bff9cd708bb93084&th=1&psc=1&tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=697323391178&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=3967307359554161200&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1006502&hvtargid=pla-716807874168&psc=1&hvocijid=3967307359554161200-0648154521-&hvexpln=0&gad_source=1

Relational Activism: https://www.relationalactivism.com/

Rich's BASW Child Protection sessions: https://basw.co.uk/social-work-child-protection-professional-practice-programme

Rich Devine's blog: https://richarddevinesocialwork.com/about/

Tim Fisher LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/timfisher101/