Burnout is a risk faced by support coordinators (and many other providers). How do you manage the emotional toll of your role and what boundaries do you put in place to allow you to ‘clock off’ at the end of the day?
MP – I ensure my phone is off at appointed times (i.e. 5pm or 6pm) – we are not a crisis service. I advise clients in advance of a likely timeframe to be able to respond. I debrief with other support coordinators, and also place importance on professional supervision
VS – I choose to live away from where I work – so as not to be faced with seeing clients out and about. I do not check my work phone after hours.
AT – I’m a hermit, I don’t go out that often on the weekends and I use the weekends to recharge – plus, my kitties help a lot. I also implement reflective practice and mindfulness, which helps a great deal.
SG – Supervision with a professional person assists. Have fun with your team, celebrate awesome wins, even if they’re small. They are worth the celebration. If you can’t do something, ask for help. Turn the phone off at finishing time every afternoon.
EH – I have seen so many amazing and not so amazing support coordinators start work and then leave not long after, simply because they didn’t realise the impact this job can have. Being careful of burnout and identifying it early is important.
Making sure you have a network of people you can debrief with – be that co-workers, peers, organisation supervisors or formal supervision (either 1:1 or group). It is important that you can express your frustration and use others’ experiences to see them in a different light that, perhaps, can help you.
Know and set your boundaries. Do not give out your personal number, don’t answer the work phone or look at emails after a specific time, and when you take time off – TAKE TIME OFF. It is so easy to let these things slip or not have them in place in the first place.
Make sure the people you support know you are not the only place they should turn – if they have a true emergency, they should ring emergency services, it is your job to make sure they have the information they need for emergency support if they need it out of hours.
When you clock off, make sure you have processes in place to put the work behind you – this is especially important if you do work from home as well. If you are working from home, get dressed into work clothes – then at the end of the day, get changed out of them. This is a great way to indicate to your brain that the work is done.
HR – I make sure that when I meet a participant for the first time, I tell them the hours that I am available and that I won’t be answering them after that time. I put my work phone away at the end of the day and don’t look at it until I’m in the office again.
I often don’t talk for the first hour once I get home. It’s hard to talk when your mind is buzzing. If I think of something, I make a note of it and then leave it again.
I make sure I have monthly supervision.
I try to catch up with support coordinator friends for coffee and compare horror stories of trying to deal with the NDIA.
I make sure that I keep a log of my wins so that the days it gets hard I remember why I’m doing this.
SH – I am very, very strict on my hours, I’m not a ‘crisis centre’. Most participants respect this, and I don’t have any issues.
It is extremely important to be able to switch off, so you can recharge and be able to give great service.
ZD – I manage the emotional toll of my Specialist Support Coordinator/Team Leader role and set professional boundaries using self-care strategies, such as making sure I get plenty of sleep, eating well, listening to music to and from work, enjoying my weekends with family and friends and recharging, and not answering, or turning off, my work phone out of my regular work hours.
SC – You are the strong point of your participant. Clock off when you finish and give and receive support to and from your colleagues.
