Speak your truth: burnout – Q6

Panel members

• Kate Read (KR) – Founder/CEO, Inspires & Co
• Rachel Arnold (RA) – Founder and Lead Support Coordinator, Latitude Support Coordination
• Zena Dyson (ZD) – Specialist Support Coordinator/Team Leader, Esteem Care Services
• Kylie Walker (KW) – Owner, Healthy Emporium
• Sarah Milliken (SM) – Team Leader & Support Coordinator, Let's Connect Support Services
• Veronica Santomingo (VS) – Support Coordinator, Richmond Fellowship Queensland
• Sabine Hazlett (SH) – Support Coordinator, Lifestyle Mentor Services
• Aylin Taylor (AT) – Support Coordinator, Tailored Options
• Elizabeth Hickey (EH) – Support Coordinator, AFA Support Coordination
• Stephen Hughes (St H) – Specialist Support Coordinator, Wellspace Australia
• Danni Bament (DB) – Managing Director, Aspire Recovery Connection

How prevalent is the ‘crisis mentality’ amongst clients and providers, and what impact does that have on you?

KR – I am very clear not to take on a client’s problems. I can only do what I can do.

RA – As a support coordinator, I feel that a lot of my participants (and some of their providers) do lean on me in a ‘crisis’, and that the ‘crisis mentality’ is extremely prevalent in my line of work. Sometimes I feel extreme pressure from both participants and providers that I need to come in and fix an issue/crisis.

As many of my participants live with mental health, they are not able to have the same level of insight or cognitive thinking to navigate their actions and decisions when they are in a crisis, and this is a time when I need to really focus on my empathy and ensure that professional boundaries are intact.

ZD – I do not have to worry about ‘crisis mentality’ as it does not exist within the culture of my organisation.

KW – We seem to be managing this well at present.

SM – It can be high in some instances. I have found this especially is the psychosocial space. Working as a team (but ensuring the boundaries aren’t crossed), developing an action plan, and having dates for implementation quite a lot of the time can work.

VS – This is not often an issue for me, as most situations and concerns can be resolved.
Keeping a level head is important and debriefing/asking advice from teammates is often very helpful.

SH – This is not an issue with me as expectations are set out clearly from the very first interaction. I also give the participants all of the contact details for services that deal with crises.

AT – I’m a fairly calm person, so with any form of crisis or crisis mentality amongst clients and providers, I tend to provide that calming effect on the person and attempt to calm them down through conversation and provide realistic suggestions/solutions to the situation.

This had an impact on me in the past through loss of sleep, appetite and burnout, however I’ve learnt to switch off at the end of the day and practice mindfulness through reflection and rational thought.

EH – Crisis and support coordination go hand in hand – it is one of the main reasons why we are here. So much of the support provided centres on one crisis or another – usually when working, you can cope with that, but have more than two or three crisis situations at the same time, and things get hard.

However, so many people working in or relying on the NDIS are affected by a crisis mentality and a lot of it is rumour driven. You only need to sit in a meeting or look at an online conversation, and you can hear something that absolutely has some information that is not true, or most likely isn’t the whole story.

Unfortunately, the NDIS is an individualised Scheme – this means that each person will have a different journey and that makes generalising funding/support/rules very difficult. The two big things I have learnt over the last seven years are to focus on what I do and wait to see whatever is being talked about in black and white. So many times, things that could have gotten me worried have ended up being absolutely fine.

(DB) – I wouldn’t say our clients have a crisis mentality. I would say many of the people we have the privilege of working with, live with a high degree of distress because of social and systemic barriers in their lives (e.g. poverty, trauma, social exclusion). It is up to a provider to not be reactive to this and fuel an environment of ‘crisis’.

Understanding difficult things happen and not trying to step in and ‘fix’ people or the situation is the most powerful thing you can do. This doesn’t mean we don’t respond, but it does mean we can be with people in their times of distress, we can listen to them, we can offer connection and compassion, and we can explore with them what they want to happen next.

When we go into ‘crisis mode’, put our superhero cape on, and try and fix a difficult situation, this is when we burn out. We also take away a person’s autonomy and agency at these times, which causes the person to experience greater distress.

Click here for question 7.