Since it's founding in 1997, the CYC-Net discussion group has been asked thousands of questions. These questions often generate many replies from people in all spheres of the Child and Youth Care profession and contain personal experiences, viewpoints, as well as recommended resources.
Below are some of the threads of discussions on varying Child and Youth Care related topics.
Questions and Responses have been reproduced verbatim.
Listen to thisHi,
I am a student in the Child and Youth Care program at Fleming
College. I am currently working on a assignment regarding how best to
cope with triggers while working in the role of Child and Youth Care work and I was
hoping to gain some insight and input from those with more experience
than I have, so I would like to ask a few questions of the CYC-Net
community:
What kinds of coping skills and resources are you
using in the field to navigate and manage triggers and their impact?
How does supervision impact that process for you?
What kind
of support do you notice or make use of within your workplace that helps
with this?
Thanks!
Becca
___
Hi
Rebecca,
I so appreciate you asking this! I think many of us get
triggered at work and don’t even realize it. I don’t know if I can
answer every part of your question, but I’ll share some of what helps
me.
I know for me, my coping depends on how I’m responding.
If I find myself detached, I often get into Problem Solving Mode and
ironically become super attached to the outcome. This can look like
spending the whole day thinking about a young person’s situation,
putting aside self-care to help, and approaching the interaction as a
chance to offer a solution. For times like these, I’m learning to tell
myself “this is not my journey” and “I am not the only key to their
success”. Instead, I focus on feeling compassion for my inner child
—which can be as simple as conjuring up “warm fuzzies” towards my past
self.
If my brain/body is allowing me to have a more obvious
emotional or visual flashback, I find calming the nervous system is a
priority. I tell myself “my body is safe at this moment”, and I focus on
that feeling of compassion again. Taking care to breathe slowly and
deeply, and not to clench my muscles too much, I imagine myself feeling
calm but strong. Some folks find mindfulness exercises (like counting 5
things you see, etc) helpful. But if I notice a trigger is really
persistent, I try to engage my executive functioning brain in a healthy
way. This might mean excusing myself to go play brain teasers on my
phone for a few minutes —it’s amazing how quickly engaging that part of
the brain can reset you!
I should mention that I have a lot of
friends who are in similar fields, and friends who generally practice
lots of emotional labour. Having this kind of social network has been
imperative to my wellbeing. If you haven’t already, I totally encourage
seeking that out.
I’m also doing an at-home cognitive therapy to
help retrain my own trauma responses using neuroplasticity. I could go
on about it, but google “limbic system retraining” if you are curious.
There are so many possible answers to this question, but I hope some
of that resonates with you.
Falon Wilton
...
Hi Rebecca,
Are you able to elaborate more on in
which you are inquiring about in regards to triggers? Are you wondering
about matters that can trigger sensitive emotions within yourself as a Child and Youth Care worker? E.g. Hearing abuse stories – or transference triggers from
students or staff?
I can speak that for me; self-care is one of
the most important things to establish from the beginning! Also ensuring
you have an outlet to work off some of the pent up emotions you may
experience, is also very useful.
Ensuring you have a strong team to digress with is also ideally
important as well. Of course keeping client confidentiality in mind; if
there is a team assigned to the child (counsellor, caseworker etc) that
you can hash and digress with it would help a lot. That ties in with
your question in regards to supervision. I found that having a
supervisor that also knows the case helps with the digression. For me I
try to re-direct my emotions and turn them into motivation and support.
Especially when the team can sit down, discuss the matters and how to
best support the child.
Having regular meetings for the child
will be an important practice to apply. In a caseload of 25-30 kids that
can be difficult; so for the higher coded kids it would have to be more
often then kids who may only need moderate levels of support.
Hope that helps a bit !! Good luck !
Krysten Amurao
...
Great question!
Falon, I really enjoyed your response, thanks
for sharing.
Be well!
Charlene Pickrem
…
Hi
Becca,
I too was wondering if the question related to yourself
or the children/youth with whom you work. If you are talking about
yourself I think, as already noted, that self-care is necessary. In
addition, while it is impossible to completely leave work behind, for
some people having a leaving work ritual can also be helpful to remind
yourself that you can create boundaries between your work and your home.
Some people do things like clear their desk, leave stone in the yard,
touch the ground before they get in the car, purposefully say goodbye to
others, particularly the kids, deep breathing saying something about
leaving the energy before you go.
If you are asking about
triggers in the moment then the main issue here is related to your
self-awareness. If you can predict what might trigger you because you
are aware of your own history issues, such as having been bullied in a
school and now you work in a school, then this is key. Being able to
predict allows you to prepare with strategies such as maintaining your
presence and self-talk. If you cannot predict what might trigger you
then it is important to have body awareness since your body will give
you clues that you are about to react. For example, you might start to
notice your heart racing or your breathing is changing. These are clues
that you are being triggered and you need to bring in a strategy such as
regulating your breathing and again self-talk. If you practice
self-regulating with the kids you work with then you can also use these
on yourself.
Hopefully that is what you were looking for as a
response.
Pat Kostouros
…
Hi Rebecca,
I suggest
reading some of Laura Steckley's writing on Containment for Child and Youth Care practitioners working with youth who have experienced trauma. One of her
articles in particular that might be helpful can be found in the March
2011 edition of the CYC-Online
journal.
Caroline Moore
(You can read the article mentioned above here:
https://www.cyc-net.org/CYC-Online
/mar2011.pdf – Eds.)
