
Mary Baginsky
Dr Mary Baginsky,Senior Research Fellow at the NIHR Policy Research Unit in Health and Social Care Workforce, reflects on our seminar led, online, by Professor Cheryl Regehr on 28 September 2021. (763 words)
Professor Cheryl Regehr is Provost and Vice-President for the University of Toronto and former Dean of the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work. She is also a Visiting Professor at our Unit this term. We were delighted that she agreed to lead a seminar that focused on her recent work. In this she explained how the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada has supported a number of her recent research projects that have examined stress, trauma and decision-making in social work (see examples below). The aim is to develop a new model for improving decision-making in situations of high-risk to reach a better understanding of the factors that drive decision-making in these situations. Professor Regehr and her team piloted a new approach for improving professional decision-making. The researchers examined biological, emotional, cognitive and contextual influences and this involved measuring social workers’ heart rates and recording their reflections on the decisions they had taken at specific times. The participants were able to link their emotional responses to the points at which they had been under physical stress. By raising their awareness to the relationship between their physiological responses and their automatic responses to the decisions they made the intention was to help them move towards more deliberate decision-making. Continue reading