Personal, professional, and social benefits from leisure engagement among social workers: A qualitative exploration

Abstract Despite the increasing attention to social workers’ self-care and their provision of leisure-related services, the interplay of leisure and work among social workers remains underexplored. Informed by the Serious Leisure Perspective, this study investigated the experience of social workers engaging in leisure and integrating it into their professional lives. Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with twenty-four Chinese social workers. Using thematic analysis, this study revealed three major themes. First, social workers gained personal benefits from coping with challenging professional work through leisure engagement. Second, they derived professional benefits from leveraging leisure skills to enhance professional practice. Third, they fostered social benefits from facilitating community and social connections through social leisure. The findings provided evidence for the common ground between social work and leisure, contributing to unpacking the ways in which social workers leveraged leisure to enhance self-care and professional competence. Future studies need to advance leisure studies of social workers and focus on their leisure careers to achieve self-fulfilment in promoting personal and social well-being.