Self-care and wellness practices of helping professionals in context of war and conflict: Western worldview and African worldview lessons learnt from a scoping literature review
Author
Faculty Advisor
Date
2026
Keywords
scoping literature review, methodology, self-care, wellness, worldview
Abstract (summary)
The poster draws from a field-based study focusing on the self-care and wellness practices of helping professionals in the context of the insecurity crisis in Burkina Faso. Using scoping literature review as a literature review methodology, our poster highlights our first-hand findings on Western and African Worldview’s conceptualizations of self-care and wellness. It highlights how in Western literature, self-care and wellness are conceptualized as practices that remain in the domain of the individual, whereas African literature emphasizes the importance of cultural, communal, spiritual, and relational perspectives of self-care and wellness. It examines how the practices apply to helping professionals working in a distress context, specifically in Burkina Faso, where exposure to constant stress, insecurity, and social services provision to internally displaced people heightens the need for sustainable self-care and wellness strategies that foster resilience. It concludes that meaningful self-care and wellness frameworks must move beyond dominant Western worldviews and intentionally incorporate culturally centered approaches to support helping professionals whose daily practices are occurring in distress or conflict settings.
Publication Information
DOI
Notes
Presented on April 23, 2026, at Student Research Day, held at MacEwan University in Edmonton, AB.
Item Type
Student Presentation
Language
Rights
All Rights Reserved