Self-care and environmentalism: Finding a socially-just balance as an early career social work researcher

Self-care is considered an important practice for social workers and often referred to during their course of study. Yet the term ‘self-care’ remains ambiguous and can be difficult for social work academics to both teach and practice. This chapter examines my own experience learning about self-care as an early-career social work academic and its connection to my burgeoning environmentalism. Spending time in nature, in particular the practice of forest bathing, has allowed me to connect self-care to a deeper social justice mission within my teaching and research. This chapter contributes to emerging social work literature about self-care and offers insights as to how this might be connected to environmentalism or ‘green social work.