Recognizing burnout and compassion fatigue and promoting self-care
This section outlines key concepts related to the psychological impact of working with highly traumatized populations.
Some of the health risks for service providers and suggested self-care techniques are listed below.
Workplace and organizational risk factors
- Caseload and degree of exposure
- Hierarchical structures and power dynamics
- Poor supervision and organizational support
Organizational/structural self-care strategies
Organizations can play a critical role in addressing the risk of burnout, compassion fatigue and secondary trauma of service providers. Continuous support from organizations is vital to the well-being of service providers and to their ability to provide adequate services.
A supportive work environment includes:
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Providing regular group sessions where staff can acknowledge and work through their feelings, not limited to crisis situations.
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Offering mentorship for new staff members.
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Encouraging a supportive supervisory role.
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Providing emotional check-ins in team meetings.
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Providing professional and continuing education and wellness programs for staff.
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Assigning cases in a strategic manner to ensure that the more challenging cases are assigned evenly.
Support systems and social support
Organizations have a responsibility to create “an emotionally supportive, physically safe and consistently respectful work environment [which] is especially important when trauma-related issues heighten intrapersonal and interpersonal stress” (Brady et al., 1999, p. 390). As a first step, organizations should evaluate the possible obstacles that exist for social support for staff (Slattery & Goodman, 2009).
Learn more about how organizations can support staff
Video: Promising practice: the Debriefing Program
With Jennifer Sandu, Community Engagement Specialist, London Cross Cultural Learner Centre,
and Teresa Dremetsikas, Program Manager, Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture
We were really lucky to partner with Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture given their expertise in the field of refugee mental health and trauma, we were relying on their expertise to develop this targeted and tailored training, given they have these experiences working within refugee trauma and practicing debriefing on a daily basis. The debriefing program that we put in place has two main components. There was a knowledge component and a skill component. The knowledge component of the debriefing training were things like looking at what is debriefing, how to use debriefing, why you would use debriefing, why this is an important practice within organizations, looking at policies and practices within organizations that encourage debriefing, so getting a good sense of what the debriefing practice is. And the second component was a practical component: looking at pieces and practicing the actual debriefings, getting into groups and having someone that is debriefing, someone is observing and someone is helping someone through that debriefing process. The most important thing to remember is that communication is a group factor, communication at all levels to ensure that the individuals and therapists, counsellors at the centre, and everybody at the centre, understand the resources that are in place for debriefing, understand what debriefing is, understand that there is flexibility whether it's in group, whether it's individual, whether it is internal or external, whether they decide to do it within the scheduled times or if they decide to do it on request. It is important to perceive this as something that is embedded in the way that we work. Debriefing is not a separate program. It is sometimes a separate activity, but it is a substantial part, embedded in the way and principles of trauma informed care work.
When looking specifically at primary care professionals, organizations should establish a “family violence” team to provide peer-to-peer support and a forum for discussing difficult cases. Professional networks may extend beyond co-workers to include organizations that are doing similar work (Coles et al., 2013). However, it should be cautioned that oversharing case material can increase the risk of secondary traumatization. Because of this risk, it is important to provide necessary support and structure to these types of peer groups and networks (Slattery & Goodman, 2009).
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Additional areas of focus:
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Supervision
Although supervision in the workplace traditionally focuses on the technical/logistical aspects of the work, it is important to also incorporate a focus on affective or emotional reactions to trauma work (Knight, 2013; Sommer, 2008). The value of “affective check-ins” is emphasized when the supervisor asks service providers in their organization to reflect on their emotional responses, along with changes in responses, to a certain client or work in general (Knight, 2013; Etherington, 2000).
Learn more about how supervisors can support staff
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Empowerment in the workplace
The negative impacts of doing trauma work are decreased when service providers feel that they have a sense of control in the workplace. As a result, the implementation of policies and practices that emphasize shared power in organizations is important (Slattery & Goodman, 2009; Kulkani et al., 2013; Knight, 2010).
Learn more about workplace empowerment
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Education
Education and professional development are also important for supporting the self-care of service providers (Posselt et al., 2020). Research shows that many primary care professionals feel that they are inadequately trained to do trauma work, and few clinicians receive preparation for the negative effects of doing trauma work (Coles et al., 2013).
Learn more about education and professional development
Featured resources
Professional Quality of Life Measure (ProQOL)*
*Potential fee/request for permissions associated with the above resource.
Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI)*
Guidebook on vicarious trauma: Recommended solutions for antiviolence workers