OPEN Forum: Trauma-informed insights – Strategies for wellbeing

Presenters: Megan Corcoran from Wagtail Institute and Donna Richards from the Australian Childhood Foundation

Overview

This OPEN Forum provided practical insights and strategies for child and family services professionals working in trauma-impacted environments. It focussed on promoting well-being, managing compassion fatigue, and implementing trauma-informed practices, to create a safer and supportive workplace.

The presenters emphasised the importance of trauma-informed supervision, self-care, and professional growth in child and family services. The speakers also shared effective strategies to manage compassion fatigue, establish professional boundaries, and create a healthy work-life balance. By adopting trauma-informed practices, promoting self-care, and establishing clear professional boundaries, child and family services can better support their staff and clients. The focus on creativity and vulnerability creates a workplace culture that encourages resilience and compassion.

Key messages

• Compassion doesn’t cause fatigue, but not taking time to care for the self does
  • Recognising signs of compassion fatigue in yourself and your team, and then addressing it, can help mitigate burnout.
  • Effective debriefing helps manage trauma and compassion fatigue, offering a structured approach to reflect and share responsibility.

• Be aware of how stress feels in your body and what it looks like in your behaviour
  • If you know what your behaviour is like when you are stressed and you can communicate that to your colleagues, you are providing a safety net around yourself. Your colleagues are then in a position to help you when they notice the signs.

• Use rituals and checklists to end the day, supporting a conscious shift from professional self to personal self
  • Self care practices, including end-of-day rituals and professional boundaries, are essential for preventing burn out.
  • Strategies such as locking away work materials and turning off work phones can help separate work and personal life

• Regular trauma transformative supervision encourages a supportive organisational culture
  • Providing opportunities for creativity and expression can help develop a safe and supportive environment.
  • Trauma-informed supervision involves safety, trust and open communication

• Supervisors play a crucial role in modelling trauma-informed practices for their supervisees
  • Vulnerability and authenticity from leaders encourage a supportive and open environment where staff feel valued, respected and supported in their work.
  • Supervisors that model teaching, consulting, counselling, monitoring goals and outcomes, evaluation, respect and ethical behaviour with their supervisees will reinforce the importance of these principles in client care.

• Safety and relationship are entwined, and this reflects our understanding of trauma and its impact
  • In the supervisee and supervisor relationship, both need to feel safe. When both parties feel safe you can achieve the other aspects of the supervision model – Safety, Relationship, Mindfulness, Reflection and Integration

Key Resources