Social prescribing (or community referral) is a model of healthcare designed to address social needs that contribute to poor health. At the heart of social prescribing programs is the link worker, who liaises between clients, health professionals and community organisations. Social prescribing is newly emerging in Australia but there are already calls for a large-scale roll out. This research, therefore, aimed to understand Australian link workers' role and skills required, to determine where such a workforce could be drawn from in Australia, and to identify what training and resources are needed to support this potential new workforce. To explore these questions, interviews were conducted with 15 link workers in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria, and the transcripts were analysed using thematic analysis. Participants were predominantly female (87%); and primarily had qualifications in social work (47%) or nursing (27%). Three overarching themes were identified: (1) skills of successful social prescribing, identifying that link work requires multifaceted social and emotional skills; (2) workforce issues, presenting that link workers experienced challenges such as a lack of available support and training, lack of public awareness of social prescribing and a lack of sustained funding; and (3) job fulfilment, related to link workers' sense of reward and accomplishment from the job. We suggest that fostering job fulfilment in conjunction with the provision of increased support, training and security will reduce feelings of overwork and burnout among link workers and likely lead to longevity in the role. Social prescribing has the potential to be hugely beneficial to clients and the community and fulfilling for link workers, provided that sufficient advocacy and resources are put in place.

中文翻译：

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社会处方联系工作者——澳大利亚的定性视角

社会处方（或社区转介）是一种医疗保健模式，旨在解决导致健康状况不佳的社会需求。社会处方计划的核心是联络员，他在客户、卫生专业人员和社区组织之间进行联络。社会处方在澳大利亚刚刚出现，但已经有人呼吁大规模推广。因此，这项研究旨在了解澳大利亚联系工人的角色和所需技能，以确定可以从澳大利亚的何处招募此类劳动力，并确定需要哪些培训和资源来支持这种潜在的新劳动力。为了探索这些问题，我们采访了昆士兰、新南威尔士和维多利亚的 15 名链接工作人员，并使用主题分析法对笔录进行了分析。参与者主要是女性 (87%)；并且主要拥有社会工作 (47%) 或护理 (27%) 的资格。确定了三个总体主题：(1) 成功的社会处方技能，确定联系工作需要多方面的社会和情感技能；(2) 劳动力问题，表示 link 的工作人员遇到了挑战，例如缺乏可用的支持和培训、公众对社会处方缺乏认识以及缺乏持续的资金；(3) 工作成就感，与员工从工作中获得的报酬感和成就感相关联。我们建议，在提供更多支持、培训和安全的同时促进工作成就感，将减少链接工人的过度工作和倦怠感，并可能导致该角色的长寿。