HSE 310 Journal Modul 6

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Southern New Hampshire University *

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Oct 30, 2023

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Journal 6-2: Practitioner Reflection Shawna Soard HSE 310 Family & Community Systems Southern New Hampshire University Dr. Bernadette Marson August 6, 2023

Human service caseworkers deal with clients many who have had traumatic events happen to them. Many of these workers want to help and when they cannot help fast enough, they can experience burnout, vicarious traumatization, or compassion fatigue due to the amount of constant empathy, and caring these workers put into their cases (Down et. al., 2009). The aspects in the Riverez case that would cause the largest potential for compassion fatigue would be the gear and helplessness that have increased due to the shooting they witnessed and the gang activity that is going on in their neighborhood on top of the fact they have so many children in the family that is involved in this case. While working with this family as a caseworker you would want to help try to elevate the pain, they have witnessed both from Julio being shot in crossfire from rival gangs and in seeing the killing of four people in front of them including a baby the same age as their own. Since helping them to create a safer environment for themselves and in getting the care they need to help themselves may take a while you may begin to feel what is being done by yourself is not enough to benefit them (Down et. al., 2009). Some practices that human service workers can put into practice to cut back on compassion fatigue are in the knowledge of self-care practices and in using them in their daily lives. To do this they would need to know the signs and symptoms of compassion fatigue, knowing when they need to ask for help, how to set healthy boundaries, eat healthy, take regular time off, use positive coping skills, and having a healthy sleep schedule (Wayback Machine, 2015). Not only should human service workers be accountable for their own self care but the organization they work for should also provide supportive help and training on top of promoting self-care awareness activities and seminars for their workers. In fact, our book said it best with the mantra for worker’s “If I am not good to me, then I cannot be good to anyone else” (Down’s et. al., 2009).

The results of my compassion fatigue self-test was a 55 for my compassion satisfaction, 11 for burnout, and 5 for secondary traumatic stress. I think this is really good numbers considering right now I feel like I have a lot on my plate between school, pressure washing with my husband, taking care of mom and the house but it obviously isn’t as bad as I thought it was. I do have a couple things I want to work on from the self-care assessment worksheet the biggest thing being making time away from my phone and realizing just because it rings does not mean I have to answer it and just because I get a text does not mean I have to respond right away. I also want to take time to go to a history museum, and the Texas musical that is in Palo Duro Canyon here during the summer is just something else to feed my mind. The last thing I want to work on for myself is taking time to start journaling again. These are things that by working on now I will already be doing once I get a job and will keep myself from compassion fatigue.

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Resources: Downs, S. W., Moore, E., & McFadden, E.J. (2009). Child Welfare and Family Services: Polices and Practice (Eighth Ed.). Pearson. Wayback Machine. (2015). Wayback Machine. Archive.org. https://web.archive.org/web/20170120054457/http://store.samhsa.gov/shin/content/SMA 14-4816/SMA14-4816.pdf