Managing personal and professional stress is essential to working within a trauma-informed care framework. It is vital that, as caregivers, we prioritise activities that help us to manage our physical and emotional health. This is known as ‘self-care’.
There is often a myth that self-care is easy, and that it comes naturally to us. However, self-care is something which requires conscious effort, self-awareness and a good level of insight into our own needs.
It is about finding and making time for the activities, routines, practices, and connections which help us to achieve and maintain optimal wellbeing, in addition to that which provides us with safety and containment in times of stress and uncertainty.
Why is Self-Care so Important for Caregivers?
Caregiving, whilst incredibly rewarding, can be emotionally demanding.
When it becomes too much, caregivers can experience physical and emotional exhaustion and compassion fatigue.
This can present particular challenges when supporting children and young people because it can impact on how we feel and behave towards those we care for.
We can become emotionally detached from our work and disengaged from the children and young people we look after, which can be perceived as us being uncaring. When our “cup is full” we struggle to maintain empathy and attunement for others.
In brief, compassion fatigue reduces our ability to provide sensitive and responsive care which can impact the child-carer attachment relationship.
The Importance of Self Reflection
In order to effectively utilise self-care practices, we need to work on self-reflection. We need to have a good level of insight into our own needs, and be able to recognise when we feel good and what helps to “fill our cup”.
Developing our reflective skills can help us to recognise when our role as a caregiver may be impacting our emotional wellbeing and when we might be neglecting self-care.
It can also help us to identify situations or events that we find triggering, or which cause us to experience stress, and help us to become aware of how our personal experiences, emotions and beliefs might impact how we provide care.
Prompts you can use to reflect on your own needs:
· What feelings am I experiencing right now? Where can I feel them in my body?
· What have I done recently to feel connected?
· What have I done to nurture myself today?
· What helps me to feel calm?
· On a scale of 1 (calm) to 10 (distressed), how do I feel right now?
· What challenged or triggered me today?
· How did my emotions impact my response in that situation?
· What challenged or triggered me today?
· What do I need?
*We spend so much of our time thinking about what the children and young people we care for need, but we can’t pour from an empty cup! It is important that we take time to think about what we need, too. E.g.,
Physical
For example, you might need to feel rested, more energised, or more organised
Emotionally
To feel supported, to reduce stress, or to be kinder to yourself.
Socially
To feel more connected with friends, or to expand your social circle.
Spiritually
To feel a sense of belonging or meaning/purpose.
Financially
To be able to treat yourself, or to feel more organised with finances.
Professionally
To develop, learn and achieve, or to feel supported at work.
Self-Compassion
Self-compassion and self-care are related concepts. Self-care means taking actions that embody being kind and considerate to oneself.
Self-compassion is the quality that allows us to honour our human experience without judgement. It is what makes self-care more than just a ‘buzz word’ or a tick box exercise.
Quite often we can be critical towards ourselves. Self-compassion is the little voice that says “it is understandable that I feel exhausted” and “I should rest, I’ve had a tough week”.
When we develop self-compassion, we see just how vital self-care is in our day to day lives. We are more likely to develop a routine which allows us to keep replenishing our “cup”, because we believe it is important in order for us to be our best and most fulfilled selves.
An Exercise for Practising Self-Compassion:
Step 1:
Put someone you care deeply about in your position (a friend, sibling, spouse, or even a pet!) and ask yourself: How would I speak to them if they were in this situation? What would I expect from them? What would I say to them?
Step 2:
Then, come back to yourself and ask: Can I have the same compassion for myself that I just had for them?
Step 3:
If you are finding it difficult to have the same compassion for yourself that you did for your chosen person, be curious about why – what makes your human experience undeserving of the same level of compassion?
Step 4:
Practice giving yourself the same compassion you give to others every day.
Devising a Self-Care Plan
Once we have begun to develop an understanding of our own needs, we can have a go at devising a self-care plan.
It is a good idea to think of a variety of strategies for each section.
Remember, you can change/add to your plan as you begin to learn more about yourself, your needs, and what works for you.
How Meadows Psychology Service Can Help
At Meadows Psychology Service, we understand that caregiving is both a rewarding and challenging journey.
That is why we offer staff wellbeing services to support the emotional needs of caregivers across a variety of settings, including residential children’s homes, foster care settings, supported accommodation, and education settings.
This can include training around supervision, embedding a supervision framework, wellbeing days, check in calls, 1:1 support and signposting to appropriate services.
Our psychological consultations also provide a safe space for carers to explore the needs of the young people they support alongside the challenges of looking after young people who have experienced significant trauma. For more information about our services and to explore how Meadows Psychology Service can help to support your organisation to prioritise self-care, please get in touch today.
