Weaving in Wellness: Infographics for Self-Care

Human service professionals are at risk for burnout, vicarious trauma (VT), and compassion fatigue (CF) throughout their careers, and contemporary levels of burnout, VT, and CF suggest a need for interventions. Engagement in mindfulness and self-care has been found to buffer these risks while increasing worker wellbeing. This article presents infographics intended for facilitating practical self-care engagement. The accompanying infographics provide guidance for mindful self-care behaviors woven into daily transitions. They present a low-cost means of promoting self-care strategies throughout agencies and organizations. This, along with minimal time commitments for each practice, makes these infographics an accessible intervention for human service professionals. These infographics may also act as a primer for more involved mindfulness and self-care training. 1 Finucane et al.: Weaving in Wellness Published by SFA ScholarWorks, Weaving in Wellness: Infographics for Self-Care Challenging working conditions such as large caseloads, limited resources, and work stress in many human services positions may increase the likelihood of burnout, vicarious trauma (VT), and compassion fatigue (CF) (Hensel et al., 2015; McFadden et al., 2014; Miller et al., 2017). However, simply being a provider of human services may be the greatest risk factor for developing professional burnout (Newell & MacNeil, 2010), as well as CF (Alkema et al., 2008). Further, human service professionals need not have long careers in the field before experiencing VT, CF, and burnout. For instance, students in health service psychology doctoral programs were found to have higher levels of stress and lower levels of self-care and quality of life than graduate students in other professions (Ayala et al., 2017), and social work students in field placements are at risk for VT, CF and burnout at rates comparable to other helping professionals (Harr & Moore, 2011). Similarly, a study of graduate students in psychology found that 38% of students reported experiencing CF and burnout (El-Ghoroury et al., 2012). Thus, even in optimal environments and with those just beginning their careers, it is critical for human service workers to have methods for addressing these factors. The present article briefly examines the risks of burnout, VT, and CF along with the concepts of self-care and mindfulness among human service professionals. We then introduce a set of infographics, which are visual representations of data or information, intended to promote holistic self-care practices. These infographics provide a lowcost opportunity to promote self-care for human services professionals. Burnout, Vicarious Trauma, and Compassion Fatigue Burnout is defined as a negative experience, primarily psychological in nature, that workers experience in response to job-related stress (Acker, 1999). This experience is often characterized by exhaustion, workers’ lack of engagement, and depersonalization of clients 2 Journal of Human Services: Training, Research, and Practice, Vol. 6, Iss. 1 [], Art. 5 https://scholarworks.sfasu. edu/jhstrp/vol6/iss1/5 (Acker, 1999). Burnout can include emotional, physical, and interactional symptoms. A systematic review of the literature related to burnout among psychologists (in a variety of settings) found that emotional exhaustion, a main dimension of burnout, was reported across the literature, as well as confirmation of a robust relationship between high workload and burnout (McCormack et al., 2018). One recent study of clinical and counseling psychologists found that nearly 48% endorsed moderate to high levels of emotional exhaustion, with the challenge of work-life balance and managing distressed clients with chronic or complex issues causing the most severe clinician distress (Simpson et al., 2019). Social worker burnout is also common across various facets of the profession (Kim & Kao, 2011). Burnout for hospice social workers is exacerbated by death anxiety (Quinn-Lee et al., 2014). In both child protective work and hospice social work, burnout is frequently associated with higher workload and difficult cases (Balbay et al., 2011; McFadden et al., 2018). The physical impact of burnout has been documented in the nursing field: it is associated with increased risk of poor general health (Khamisa et al., 2016). Across human service professions, worker burnout is an abiding feature, and threatens not only the individual worker’s experience but also organizational functioning; a recent meta-analysis of studies found that clinician burnout is related to lowered levels of patient safety (Garcia et al., 2019). McCann and Pearlman (1990) conceptualized VT as an issue faced by clinicians and other helpers that can follow working with clients who have experienced trauma. VT involves the practitioner experiencing posttraumatic stress symptoms following engaging with traumatized clients, in spite of not having directly witnessed traumatic occurrences. Negative affective changes in reference to client experiences, in addition to intrusive thoughts, nightmares, and disturbing imagery, are common reactions to vicarious traumatization (Dunkley & Whelan, 3 Finucane et al.: Weaving in Wellness Published by SFA ScholarWorks, 2006). In some contexts, the prevalence of VT can be quite high; for example, one study of domestic violence victim advocates found a VT prevalence of approximately 50%, with risk factors including hourly length of workweek, hours of direct service, and working with adult survivors of child sexual abuse (Benuto et al., 2018). The term “compassion fatigue” is used in the helping professions to describe clinicians’ responses to client trauma and distress (Adams et al., 2006). Psychometric data gathered from social workers with a traumatized client base suggests that burnout and VT are actually underlying dimensions of compassion fatigue (Adams et al., 2006). Whereas vicarious traumatization tends to refer specifically to symptoms of PTSD, CF considers the impact of client experiences on the clinician more holistically, referring to the emotional, physical, and spiritual depletion social workers and other helpers can experience following exposure to client trauma (Pfifferling & Gilley, 2000). Among a random sample of clinical social workers and clinical psychologists who identified as having some expertise in trauma treatment, six percent endorsed compassion fatigue, and 12% endorsed burnout; with increased risk among those who had high caseloads of clients with PTSD, and who did not used evidence-based trauma treatments (Craig & Sprang, 2010). Practice context was also influential in an investigation of compassion fatigue in oncology nurses; finding that CF is more common for those who have worked longer in clinical nursing, those working in secondary hospitals, and those with passive coping strategies (Yu et al., 2016).