This evening I watched another 2020 Lilly Conference session by Dr. Susan Egbert and Sean Camp from Utah State University. Again, the duo was engaging and presents so well together. The session was entitled: “Caring for Self While Serving Students: Trauma Stewardship for Educators” and had very useful information, beautiful slides, and an important message. They focused on compassion fatigue, burnout, and vicarious trauma and how to cope in difficult times. They provided definitions:
- Burnout: physical and emotional exhaustion resulting from prolonged stress and fatigue that results in depleted ability to cope with work/life demands.
- Compassion fatigue: deep erosion of our compassion and ability to tolerate strong emotions and difficult stories from others. Loss of the ability to care… “jaded” is often used.
- Vicarious or secondary trauma: repeated exposure to difficult stories and situations that over time change how we view the world.
Listening to and writing these definitions struck me. I have certainly felt these… Egbert mentioned these affect our responses to work and others. Camp emphasized that we must realize that these are normal and expected responses. Camp shared two books that I have put on my audiobook list: Kitchen Table Wisdom by Rachel Remen and Trauma Stewardship by Laura van Dernoot Lipsky. Camp put up a quote from each book/author and noted it is expected that during this pandemic suffering we will suffer vicarious trauma. I appreciated hearing this. It has been a challenging year, and, while I am not in the front lines of healthcare or a social worker, I have been impacted by the events… and this has affected my responses and interactions. Egbert mentioned that as educators it is ok and that educators are vulnerable to fatigue and vicarious trauma. We care about the students we teach! One bullet point that prompted me to pause the video was:
Today’s classrooms are filled with victims of trauma carrying the baggage of poverty, hunger, abuse, violence, neglect, illness, divorce, death, and more… and you have met those students and cared for them… Struggling with concern for these students, daily reminders of the obstacles we face, and the human desire to support and relieve them, can simply overwhelm educators over time.
Susan Egbert and Sean Camp, 2020 Lilly online conference
This truly stopped me. The impact of this can vary, as mentioned by Camp: one can become detached or overly involved. Egbert mentioned symptoms: feeling helpless and hopeless, a sense that one can never do enough, operating in stress mode, minimizing, exhaustion, inability to listen, avoidance of students and colleagues we can’t cope with anymore, numbing, addiction, and grandiosity. That las one was one I had not thought about and have likely experienced: “an inflated sense of importance related to your work.” Camp stressed that we have to be self-aware and practice trauma stewardship. Camp encouraged acknowledgment and commitment to making space to heal and commuting to making the changes actively and intentionally. Egbert had three important bullets on one slide highlighting self-assessment as an early warning system, self-care as an ethical obligation, and self-intervention with intention! I love the self-care as an ethical obligation. Egbert introduced the Canadian Mental Health Continuum Model an how we can fluctuate from healthy to ill. Egbert mentioned self-awareness is critical, and Camp said we should be self-reflective to process and cope with situations. Next, Camp said we have to practice self-care to be effective as educators and therefore it is our ethical obligation. This makes sense and brings up our responsibilities. You are not being selfish by practicing self care was how Camp reframed this! Egbert mentioned helping colleagues with a “timing, tact, and dosage” model. Egbert and Camp discussed the bio-psycho-social-spiritual model and self-care with intention. From the Trauma Stewardship book, they explained the Five Directions model to choose what areas to focus on. For example: North is to create space for inquiry and why/what are we doing and if it is working; East is choose a focus and have a plan B; South is to create a micro culture of compassion and community; West is for finding balance; and the Fifty Direction is daily practice of centering yourself and maybe a day to rest. Egbert explained that we develop the skills as we progress through our careers. I think this is true, and I feel a need to refocus… and in many ways I have by being intentional about taking care of myself. I thought it was interesting that they mentioned journaling: I think this blog has helped me a lot! I’m learning a lot from others and in the process about my own goals and philosophy!
