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Auburn's student services team is here for more than just our students. Supporting you is just as important to us. Sometimes what we need is an objective ear, a vent session, or to jot our thoughts down to someone outside of our everyday circle so the words don't have to feel so heavy.
What are you experiencing?
What are you experiencing?
We all experience burnout, but compassion fatigue is both burnout AND secondary traumatic stress.
Burnout is the "occupational hazard of our field. It is characterized by physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion caused by long term involvement in emotionally demanding situations.”
Secondary Traumatic Stress is "is stress resulting from helping or wanting to help a traumatized or suffering person."
Together, these two can cause compassion fatigue. It’s been shown that when we suffer from compassion fatigue,
we work more rather than less. And as a result, our health suffers, relationships with others and our personal
lives are impacted, and eventually our students may be negatively impacted.
Self-Care
“There is a cycle to self-care. We must take care of ourselves before we can focus on others. If you aren’t feeling well, healthy and nurtured – your stress and burnout can impact others in the workplace. It is easy to forget that we can impact the culture, and simultaneously feel attacked by the negative energy in the building. With some intention and best practices, the environment can become one of peace and safety. You decide.”
(Center for Childhood Resilience, 2021)
While self care may be a buzzword these days, sometimes you just can’t do it alone. Nor should you have to. Sometimes our squads are small, intimate, and affectionate. While other times our squad is enormous and bonded by geographic or historic identity. The bottom line is that squad care reminds us that there is no shame in reaching out to others, and our squad can enrich and support our self-care practices.
What types of stress are you experiencing regularly?
What types of stress are you not experiencing?
None of these indicators should be new to you. However, we recommend you make a commitment to yourself to put some of these in place today. Take a moment to think of which strategies you currently use.
This information provided above is directly from the ISBE Trauma Training hosted by the Center for Childhood Resilience.
Video below. Interested in the training? Learn more by visiting their website here.
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