Learning to take care of ourselves.

Learning to take care of ourselves

Social work isn’t an easy profession; with budget cuts, stressful situations and growing numbers of caseloads, it’s never been more important for practitioners to take the time to look after themselves effectively. Sass Boucher tells us more about a new model of Self-Care that she has developed, which is effective in providing positive support for social workers.

What is professional trauma / fatigue and why is it so relevant to social workers?

Professional Trauma and Fatigue is a way to collectively talk about stress, burnout, compassion fatigue, vicarious and secondary trauma.

They are all different concepts but can all contribute to eroding our wellbeing when we are working with others, regularly listening to stories of distress and trauma. This is obviously very relevant to social workers who are spending their working days listening to human pain in many ways.

Social worker burnout is a real issue for the profession. How can we spot the signs of stress amongst colleagues?

It is very real, and it is interesting because it is generally those around us that spot something has changed as opposed to noticing it ourselves. Of course, there are very real physical symptoms associated with professional trauma and fatigue, in addition to emotional signs; however, these symptoms can be very different from person to person. One of us may become very quiet and isolate ourselves, whereas another of us may become verbally agitated and angry quickly.

It is about learning to recognise our own coping strategies and those who we work with. Knowing ourselves, and knowing our peers is so important in spotting changes in behaviour that maybe signs of professional trauma and fatigue.

However, it is imperative that I caveat this with an awareness of physical health issues that it would be sensible to take to a GP in order to rule out any physical health conditions. A lot of the symptoms overlap, palpitations, headaches, upset stomachs to name a few, these could all be important to get checked out - if in doubt, rule this out!

You’ve developed your own practice model based upon your “five pillars of protection”. Can you tell us what this is about?

My research, although small in scale drew out some concrete themes, these have been validated through further research and training with one of my colleagues and co-founders Kate. The five pillars of Awareness, Supervision, Peer Support, Trauma Informed and Self-Care. We believe these five pillars protect against Professional Trauma and Fatigue.

We don’t have space to go into them too deeply here, however what is important is to understand the control we have as individuals to influence and build these pillars, and how they can feed into each other.

"We need to create a culture where it is ok to take care of ourselves and encourage others to do so"

For example, we may not feel therapeutically supported in supervision that it is based purely on caseload, but we are able to influence what we take to supervision, so make the best of it. Then, if you are feeling unsupported look at your peer support or your self-care to see if you can ramp those pillars up.

You believe self-care should be taught as part of ongoing training, why do you think it’s not covered in enough depth?

For me it is very simple, if we do not look after ourselves and each other we will break. I do believe it is being brought to the forefront a little more than it was. I deliver sessions to ASYE’s and this is excellent, if we can create awareness early on then we have a chance of professional self-care becoming part of our practice.

I am also hearing a little more that professional self-care is being brought to social work students at

universities, but it is generally an acknowledgment that we need to look after ourselves. I believe we need to teach around professional trauma and fatigue and encourage self-awareness alongside the concepts and theories.

Professional Trauma and Fatigue is real, very simply if we aren’t aware of it, we are unable to proactively mitigate against it.

Should self-care become an important part of our CPD activities?

I believe it is essential! We need to create a culture where it is ok to take care of ourselves and encourage others to do so.

The team environment is perfect for this! If you see a colleague rocking on her seat because she needs the loo, tell them to go! If we spent just ten minutes out of our professional day actively doing something to make us smile, how priceless is that? We used to

have lunch hours, most social workers we train don’t take time to eat. Basic human needs of refuelling and going to the loo really shouldn’t be a luxury.

At the end of every training session we deliver, we ask for feedback, and there are two relevant comments here that are generally repeated after every session. ‘We should have been taught this years ago’ and ‘Managers need this training, they need to buy into the concept.’

How can managers lead by example and ensure that their teams are paying enough attention to self-care?

Managers can and should be a self-care role model, showing them how it’s done, encouraging the culture as a part of model supporting their teams throughout the day.

Yes, there are impossible targets, yes there are immensely complex and traumatic cases, but encouraging social workers to remember why they chose to become a social worker can be valid and strengthen motivation.

The motivation of social workers is generally not money or 9-5 hours. They know that they are going to be entering a tough job, but they still do, with energy and passion. It is simply unacceptable that we are losing talented, highly trained and phenomenally committed practitioners because we are not encouraging them to look after themselves and each other.

You offer a wide range of training courses to help practitioners look after themselves effectively – why is training in this area so important?

As I mentioned before, awareness is key, therefore training is an essential part of moving forward to nurture and strengthen ourselves, our teams and our managers. The training alone says, ‘I matter’ "I matter enough to spend half a day or a day on working out how to look after me." We know professional self-care isn’t rocket science, but we also know that not many of us prioritise it. We belong to a sector that by its very nature prioritises caring for others, and it’s not necessarily putting ourselves first, but it is caring for ourselves as well as others. If we don’t, we’ll break: ‘I’m fine’ is not enough to keep us afloat.

We have a website, which in addition to showing you about our model and theory, hosts a blog, so any budding bloggers out there do get in touch. It’s your voices and experience that really matter!

Want to find out more?

To learn more about the Five Pillars of Protection, or find out more information about Sass’ training workshops, please visit selfcarepsychology.com or email info@selfcarepsychology.com