About the project
Poor wellbeing and compassion fatigue are serious risks to the social care workforce, and to service delivery. This project investigates the psychological mechanisms underpinning the relationship between heritage engagement, the development of historical empathy, and the translation of empathy into workplace compassion to support resilience and work engagement.
This project investigates the psychological mechanisms underpinning the relationship between heritage engagement (visits to heritage sites) and the development of empathy and compassion in homelessness support staff. Homelessness support staff are at high risk of burnout and compassion fatigue, posing risks both to their wellbeing and to the future functioning of the care system.
Building on findings from Places of Joy and the HerWellNHS Feasibility Study, as well as recent research on compassion fatigue, this PhD takes a mixed methods approach to:
- understanding how and why heritage engagement may induce historical empathy
- how historical empathy may induce compassion in social care workers.
The student will identify a range of heritage sites to be used in the research, and collect and analyse pre- and post-visit data from study participants. They will join an established transdisciplinary team that brings together academics, social care, charity, local authority and heritage partners in Hampshire. Their findings will help develop and design novel heritage-based programmes for workforce resilience in the social care sector.
