COVID-19 - Emotions Matter: Skill Building, Emotional Resilience and Social Support for Care Workers

Human service occupations (e.g. healthcare and social services) often involve encounters with patients or clients that necessitate the use and regulation of emotions. As such, they require additional skills and support beyond those currently considered in workplace policies. Recently, however, the unprecedented work conditions caused by COVID-19, have highlighted the importance of these skills by revealing the exacerbated psychosocial consequences of emotional labour—a type of work activity that requires human service workers to effectively display certain emotions, while at the same time internally suppressing other felt emotions. This project addresses the need for evidence-based research to help inform the development of supportive workplace resources and strategies to promote emotional resiliency among community care professionals.