Effective, healthy self-care is another important strategy to integrate into your advocate role.
This work is difficult and can be isolating. You will hear stories that make you sad and others that make you angry. You will have concerns for the safety of your clients and, from time to time, yourself. You will sometimes feel as though no one in the system is hearing or responding to the situations your clients are in.
Often, frontline workers feel it is selfish to take the time to care for themselves. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Not taking care of yourself limits your effectiveness in your work and may cut short the length of time you can do this work. It is important to recognize that keeping yourself healthy, both physically and psychologically, is critical if you want to do the best job you can for the women who turn to you for support.
Don’t be shy or feel embarrassed if you have strong emotional reactions to the stories you hear and the things you see when working with women who have been abused and their children. It is perfectly normal. In fact, you should worry if you don’t have reactions.
You will witness the injustices of the system and see women being re-victimized and put in further danger. You may feel helpless to change the situation because you have no control over the court proceedings. This may make you angry and frustrated.
You may come face to face with the abuser, which may make you angry, fearful and/or anxious.
It is important to recognize how you are reacting, what triggers these reactions and the effect they have on your well-being. Understanding yourself will help you prepare for your interaction with the next woman you are supporting. Your effectiveness as an advocate is dependent on your own health and well-being.
Guiding self-care principles for our work
To maintain your ability to do your work effectively over time, you need to:
- Know your limitations and be clear about your role.
- Not promise help that is beyond your scope or your agency’s mandate.
- Maintain professional and personal boundaries.
- Take care of your physical health.
- Find non-work activities that make you feel good and engage in them as a way to restore yourself.
Everyone brings a different approach to self-care. However, one thing that everyone doing this work needs to remember is that you cannot fix it all. The systemic flaws are bigger than any one of us individually and often bigger than all of us together. You can do your very best to support a woman and advocate for her, but at the end of the day, her outcomes will depend on many factors other than you. Of course, one of these factors is the woman herself, who may make choices that have negative consequences for her.
If you set priorities and stick to them, establish clear boundaries with your clients, engage in open and honest supervision and work as a positive team member within your agency, with court workers and officials and in the community, you will find it much easier to manage the trauma created by your work.
Your employer also has responsibilities: to provide effective supervision, including clinical supervision, to develop policies and procedures that ensure staff have adequate time away from work, benefits whenever possible to allow you to access self-care services and activities, to create a positive team environment and to support active self-care by modelling it at the management level.
Possible strategies
Only you know what strategies will work for you both at and away from work. The ideas below are intended as suggestions to get you thinking about what you might do to ensure your well-being as you do this very difficult work:
- Engage in ongoing self-reflection.
- See a therapist.
- Keep a journal.
- Learn to say no to extra responsibilities when you need to.
- Spend time with people other than your co-workers.
- Allow yourself to cry.
- Make time for meditation or other spiritual practices.
- Take breaks in your workday.
- Take time to chat with co-workers.
- Use appropriate humour in your work.
- Make use of peer-group support.
- Get regular supervision and consultation.
- Use community resources as needed.
- Be proactive in addressing your needs for professional development and training.
- Get regular physical activity.
- Make time for hobbies and other personal interests.
- Connect with your religion, culture or community.
It is all too easy to let self-care slip when work is demanding and there seems to be not enough time. While you might be able to ignore your own needs for a while, eventually, you will experience emotional fatigue, burnout, or even vicarious trauma. Building a regular regime of self-care and knowing when to ask for help or support will help you remain an effective advocate for a long time.