A qualitative study on the counseling experience of social workers in daycare facilities for people with disabilities: Struggling between two identities

Objectives This study aimed to investigate the meaning and phenomenon of the counseling experience of social workers who practice counseling at a daycare facility for people with disabilities in Busan, and presents the es-sence of their meanings. Methods Using Giorgi's phenomenological research method, in-depth interviews were conducted with six social workers with more than three years of experience in daycare facilities for people with disabilities in Area P. Data from the interviews were analyzed. This study followed the following steps: reading the description with the over-all context in mind, distinguishing meaning units while focusing on the study phenomenon, converting the mean-ing units into counseling psychology terms, and integrating the converted meaning units into a general structural description of the study phenomenon. Results As a result of the analysis, 26 meanings were derived, and their relationships were identified into nine themes and grouped under three topics. Focusing on the core themes, the social workers of the daycare facilities for people with disabilities “faced actual difficulties and counseling environment of people with disabilities and their caregivers, which is different from the counseling for people without disabilities.” They were “struggling for the change and growth of people with disabilities even in exhausting situations.” Because of this, they were aware of the need to “recognize the poor counseling environment for people with disabilities and take measures to im-prove it.” Conclusions Based on the findings of this study that investigated the counseling experience of social workers in daycare facilities for people with disabilities in Busan, the significance and limitations of the study were discussed, and suggestions for follow-up research were presented.