Developing family and community resilience in a post-pandemic world

Faculty of Community & Health Sciences: Dr Serena Isaacs - Rising Star

DOCTOR Serena Isaacs is keenly aware of the daily struggle to create balance in families and individuals. She is a supervising Research Psychologist and a Senior Lecturer who has been with the Department of Psychology at the University of the Western Cape since 2011. She graduated with a PhD in Psychology in April 2018 and her postdoctoral work has focused on furthering the field of family resilience research in South Africa. Her work has never been more important than during the pandemic. “It is hard to pinpoint how women are disproportionately affected because it’s something we experience every day — even before the pandemic. “I see it in academia all the time. When you’re in a meeting and something needs to be arranged or organised, inevitably there will be a woman behind it. “You carry so much responsibility by definition of being a woman, and when you add the label academic to that, you are carrying the weight of the world. We’re looking after the current and next generation, not only at home but at work as well (and these days, work is home). In academia, so much of what you do affects others and can have a significant impact on the rest of their lives. It’s no exaggeration to say that people’s futures are in our hands.” When talking about work-home balance, Dr Isaacs admits that the lines can get totally blurred. “Our work is now at home and our home is now (our place of) work. Not only are we taking care of the house — cooking, cleaning and doing the laundry — but we also have to fit our professions into our home space as well. Creating that separation of work and personal space has been quite the challenge.” Over the years, she has managed to develop a resilient system for achieving her goals. “My priorities are based on my life goals – both work and personal. At the beginning of every new year, I identify a list of main goals. For example, one of my goals for 2021 is to ensure that the programme I developed is implemented and evaluated. Another goal is to ensure that all students I supervise have received their ethics clearance and have collected data. My third goal is to ensure that I participate in meaningful and impactful community or outreach activities. “In order to achieve these goals, I need to ensure that each month, I have accomplished something to those ends. So, on Monday mornings I sit and prioritise tasks for the week. At the end of the week, I go back to that list and review what I was able to do and what I wasn’t able to complete and why.

“Not only are we taking care of the “There’s never been a more pressing need for families to build resilience. house, but we have to fit our professions That’s why my aim is to contribute to into our home space as well. Creating that separation of work and personal and develop the area of family and community resilience in a post-pandemic world, and inspire others to folspace has been quite the challenge.” low suit.”