Making a Self-Care Plan [on Brushes for iPad]

During my last semester in graduate school, I developed an intervention I am proud to share with you all. It’s a self-care plan. My colleagues loved it and many of my clients have embraced it. Furthermore, it is tangible and can be taken home by the client to put on their wall or refrigerator – a practice I encourage as a form of buy-in to their treatment.

This intervention leads the client in identifying their needs for their mental, physical, and spiritual self. It then helps the client to identify important people in their support systems and goals they wish to accomplish (in therapy, in general, etc).

This proved to be an excellent tool with other clients who may not see a counselor over a the summer break (my final year internship was at a University).

I have two versions (see: Downloads). One is for utilization on an iPad drawing app (I use Brushes for iPad) and a second version is in .PDF for you to print out. I did not brand either version, so please do not resell them.

Intervention

This is how I utilize this intervention with my clients:

For Social Workers

As the creator of this intervention (surely, there must be others similar to this), it was important for me to integrate concepts that I have been preaching to my clients. In essence, I bought into developing a self-care plan out of a necessity for preventing burnout and promoting my own well-being. The same self-care plan you saw in the video (and below) is hanging on my wall. Why? It is because I often try to practice what I preach to my clients.

Especially when I’m not feeling well (i.e. irritable), I run an inventory on my own self-care plan and usually, a lack of sleep is the culprit! But that’s just one example. I encourage social work instructors, supervisors, and colleagues to take this (or a similar intervention) to promote this concept of self-care among helping professionals.

My Self-Care Plan! (click for larger version)

Downloads

Here are two templates: a .png version (which you can save to your iPad) and a .pdf which you can print out if you wish to use regular pen and paper with your clients.

Self-Care Plan Template (PNG) for iPad - Click image for PNG file

Self-Care Template (PDF) – Click to download for general printing

Self-Care Plan by Social Work Tech Blog | Ignacio Pacheco is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at socialworktechblog.com.

Enjoy!

And to those in, starting, or ending school, congratulations on your journey so far! We made it!