Training Resource Center - Self-Care Initiative

Increasingly, social service organizations, in general, and child welfare agencies, specifically, recognize the need to be explicitly attentive to promoting self-care as a professional practice. Research indicates that child welfare workers may be at an increased risk for vicarious traumatization, secondary traumatic stress, compassion fatigue as trauma related stress, and professional burnout. Moreover, public child welfare workers, when compared to other social service professionals, are disproportionately impacted by bureaucratic processes related to service delivery and cuts in funding and community resources. Indubitably, these factors can negatively impact workers’ abilities to deliver adept social services to children and families in need. Thus, there is a clear need to ensure that workers are explicitly informed about foundational, practical strategies for engaging in self-care practices. Against this backdrop, the University Training Consortium (UTC) at Eastern Kentucky University (EKU) and the Training Resource Center (TRC) at the University of Kentucky (UK) embarked on an initial assessment of self-care practices of CHFS employees as part of the annual employee survey administered by EKU. In summary, data analyses revealed significant discrepancy between personal and professional self-care practices, with the latter rating lower. Among all divisions, employees in Family Support and Protection and Permanency yielded the lowest self-care practices scores. These data lend credence to the notion that CHFS employees, particularly in these two areas, need additional supports, education, and training associated with engaging in self-care practices. This initiative aims to contribute to meeting those needs through the following: Proposed Self-Care Initiative To address self-care challenges illustrated in the data described above, the Self-Care Initiative will continue to conceptualize, develop, and evaluate a self-care training initiative specifically tailored to public child welfare and family workers in Kentucky. This initiative will include the following elements (scope): 1. Conduct a statewide assessment of self-care practices for Protection and Permanency and Family Support staff 2. Conduct analyses of statewide assessment data and provide formal report to CHFS, DCBS leadership 3. Develop and implement training plan to provide self-care trainings in each of the nine (9) service regions. These trainings will teach and reinforce engaging in self-care practices conducive to creating a culture of overall employee wellness. 4. Evaluate the impact of the regional self-care trainings 5. Develop/pilot virtual (e.g., online) refreshers to supplement regional trainings