There is a phrase that returns again and again when we speak of care work and the stresses that carers face, both paid and unpaid, “You must look after yourself too.” It is well meant. It is frequently spoken. And yet, for far too many who work in social care, it feels like an instruction spoken into impossibility.
Because how do you practise self-care when the shift does not end on time? How do you prioritise your own wellbeing when someone else’s distress takes precedence? How do you restore yourself when the system you work within is itself exhausted?
This is the paradox at the heart of Self-Care Month. Beginning on 24 June and culminating on 24 July, symbolically reflecting care “24 hours a day, 7 days a week”, it invites all of us to reflect on how we sustain our own health and wellbeing. But in social care, that invitation can never be reduced to individual choice or personal effort alone. Because in care, self-care is never just personal. It is profoundly political.
We have, over recent years, become more fluent in the language of wellbeing. We speak of resilience, mindfulness, work-life balance. We offer access to apps, helplines, brief moments of pause. But we must also be honest.
The evidence is now overwhelming that those working across health and social care are experiencing levels of stress, trauma and exhaustion that should concern us all. In England the Care Quality Commission has highlighted how sustained pressure during the pandemic led to significant anxiety, fatigue, and burnout among staff, intensified by witnessing unprecedented levels of illness and death and by carrying emotional burdens often in place of absent families. More recent data tells a similar story. Over half of NHS staff report going to work despite not feeling well enough to perform their duties, and nearly one in three describe themselves as experiencing burnout. Among care workers, the picture can be even starker: significant proportions report poor mental health, financial insecurity, and a lack of adequate workplace support.
These are not statistics. They are signals. Signals that something is profoundly out of balance.
There is a danger, subtle but real, that in emphasising self-care we inadvertently place yet another responsibility upon already burdened shoulders. We risk saying: “You must cope better.” When what we should be saying is: “We must care better, for you.” Self-care cannot become an act of moral expectation placed upon individuals working within morally injurious systems.
Because the truth is this: you cannot meditate your way out of structural underfunding. You cannot breathe deeply enough to resolve chronic staff shortages. You cannot journal your way through inequity, undervaluation, and exhaustion.
If we frame self-care solely as an individual act, then we fail not only workers, but those they support. Because a workforce that is depleted cannot offer safe, relational, and responsive care. The link between staff wellbeing and quality of care is not theoretical; research consistently shows that burnout impacts both staff retention and the quality of care delivered to individuals. To ignore the wellbeing of the workforce is, ultimately, to compromise the safety and quality of care itself.
So what might it mean to take self-care seriously in social care? It begins with a shift in emphasis from individual resilience to collective responsibility. That means creating working environments where staff have time, not just permission, to pause and recover. Rotas are designed with humanity rather than mere efficiency. Emotional labour is recognised, named, and supported. Supervision is reflective, not transactional. Pay and conditions affirm dignity rather than erode it.
It is found in the small but significant acts with a colleague noticing when someone is struggling; a manager asking not just “Are you coping?” but “How are you really?” and teams creating cultures where vulnerability is not penalised but welcomed.
We must challenge the deeply embedded narrative in care that self-sacrifice is synonymous with compassion. Caring for others should not require the absence of care for oneself. Indeed, the opposite is true. To sustain care, we must sustain carers.
The World Health Organization describes self-care as individuals and communities promoting and maintaining their own health, with or without the support of a health worker. But in social care, we might reframe that definition.
Self-care is not simply about what the individual does. It is about what the system enables. It is about whether we have designed a world of work where rest is possible, recovery is expected and wellbeing is foundational, not optional. Because the simple truth is this: care is relational. And relationships cannot be sustained indefinitely by those who are exhausted, unseen, or unsupported.
Self-Care Month calls us to recognise that care is continuous, 24/7, without pause. But for those who live that reality every day, we must ensure that continuity does not become depletion. So perhaps, this week, the invitation is not to ask care workers to do more for themselves. But to ask all of us, providers, leaders, policymakers, politicians, communities, what would it take to build a system where self-care is not a struggle, but a given? Where sustaining those who sustain others is not an aspiration, but a foundation. Because self-care is not selfish. It is the quiet infrastructure of safe, compassionate, human care. And without it, everything else begins to falter and fall apart.
Donald Macaskill
Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash
