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2. Coping strategies
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How do people respond to stress?
◦ Problem focused coping
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Active coping
Planning
Suppression of competing activities
Restraint coping
Seeking of instrumental social support
◦ Emotion focused coping
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Seeking of emotional social support
Positive reinterpretation
Acceptance
Denial
Turning to religion
◦ Less constructive ways of coping
– Venting of emotions
– Behavioural disengagement
– Mental disengagement
(Carver et al., 1989)
3. Individualism vs. collectivism
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Increased individualism in society and requirement for
individual responsibility (e.g. welfare, employability, etc.)
◦ Risk Society (Beck, 1992) and second or reflexive
modernity (Beck et al.,1994)
◦ Individualisation constitutes “unspoken ideological
foundations” (Dean, 2004, p. 12)
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“[T]he individualistic nature of contemporary culture
serve[s] to discourage a sense of responsibility for
others” (Ellis and Rogers, 2004, p. 93).
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Examples from project on unemployed women’s coping
strategies:
◦ Self help / support group (phone lists, activities from
everyday to cultural)
◦ Conversations (interviews) act as ‘therapy’
4. Volunteering and volunteer
wellbeing
— Increased
wellbeing observed and
self-reported by volunteers
◦ Lower mortality rates
◦ More likely to be happier, less likely to
suffer from depression
◦ Report higher levels of life satisfaction
◦ Lower risk factors for stress-related
illness, e.g. heart disease
5. Volunteering and happiness
Strong correlation between mental and
physical wellbeing and volunteering – but is
there a causal link?
— How does volunteering improve volunteer
happiness?
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◦ Trains empathy
◦ Provides social comparison, lowers concern for
status
◦ Socially integrated
◦ Better (perceived) coping skills
◦ More active lifestyle
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All these factors can be linked to improved
mood -> less stress -> better health
6. ‘Reasonable altruism’
— However,
this is true only where
volunteering does not ‘overwhelm’ the
volunteer, causing compassion fatigue
— Burn-out due to intense emotions, often
combined with lack of training
— Most likely to occur after significant time
of experience when idealism and
enthusiasm likely to be replaced with
realism and cynicism
— Volunteering requires „self-renewal“: new
roles, self-reflection, time off
7. Emotional labour
— This
refers to the effort, planning and
control that is required to express
desired emotions (Karabanow 1999).
— The establishment of a personal and
trusting relationship is in itself an
emotional and intense process
— Examples
of different relationships
from project of learning providers
working with NEETs
8. Homology (I am like you: empathy, acceptance, role
model)
They see that, that’s explained, that’s what you can do.
She’s come from where you are.
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Mother (not father?) figure: nurture, support, caring
… we make them toast in the morning and you know clear
up after them.
[T]he problem for me as a male, is that they’re trying to
compute in their head who’s “Ben”, who is he, what is this
role model, is he my dad, is he my granddad, most of
them have a step dad who they don’t seem to like very
much, they haven't had a male role model and that’s vital.
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9. The police / keeping it real
I think the providers that deal with the problems a bit more
successfully are (…) just real with them and say look this is
reality, this is what’s going to happen and then that’s it.
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Sales strategies: create demand, responsive, listen
[O]ne of the most valuable things I ever learnt in sales, which I
employ religiously with working with young people, is get to
know your end user and don’t make a product that you yourself
wouldn’t want to buy.
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The soldier: challenge
I just don’t believe in pampering people too much. I believe,
alright you’ve had a bad background, you’ve had a bad start,
what you going to do, sit there crying or are you going to stand
up and fight?
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10. References
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Beck, U., 1990. Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. London: Sage.
Beck, U., Giddens, A. and Lash, S. (1994) Reflexive Modernization. Politics, Tradition and
Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Borgonovi, F. (2008). Doing well by doing good. The relationship between formal
volunteering and self-reported health and happiness. Social Science and Medicine, 66,
2321-2334.
Carver, C., Scheier, M. and Weintraub, J. (1989) Assessing Coping Strategies: A
Theoretically Based Approach, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 56(2):
267-283.
Dean, H. (2004) Human Rights and welfare rights: contextualising dependency and
responsibility. In: H. Dean (ed.) The Ethics of Welfare, Human rights, dependency and
responsibility. Bristol: Policy Press, 7-28.
Ellis, K. and Rogers, R. (2004) Fostering a human rights discourse in the provision of
social care for adults. In: H. Dean (ed.) The Ethics of Welfare, Human rights, dependency
and responsibility. Bristol: Policy Press, 89-109.
Haski-Leventhal, D., and Bargal, D. (2008). The volunteer stages and transitions model:
Organisational socialisation of volunteers. Human Relations, 61: 67.
Karabanow, J., 1999. When Caring Is Not Enough: Emotional Labor and Youth Shelter
Workers. Social Service Review, 73 (3), 340-357.
Post, S. (2005). Altruism, Happiness and Health: It’s Good to Be Good. International
Journal of Behavioural Medicine, 12(2), 66-77.