Cathy Cave: Hi everyone, and welcome to SAMHSA's Program to Achieve Wellness webinar series
on enhancing our capacity for wellness, as we provide peer support and family support
work.
I'm going to turn the program over to Peggy Swarbrick.
Dr. Peggy Swarbrick : Great.
Thanks, Cathy.
My name is Peggy Swarbrick, and I'm Senior Consultant with the SAMHSA's program to achieve
wellness, and we're really excited to have you here today.
SAMHSA's motto is "Behavior health is essential to health; prevention works; treatment is
effective; and people recover," and today, we're excited to have this session.
We just want to let you know that we're representing SAMHSA.
The views expressed in this training do not necessarily represent the views, policies,
and positions of the Center for Mental Health Service, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health
Administration, or the US Department of Health and Human Services.
Today we're really excited, as Cathy mentioned, that we're going to present module four: incorporating
reflective practices.
This is a four-part series that's been focusing on enhancing personal capacity for wellness,
and this series has been brought to you by the Program to Achieve Wellness, and the series
offers suggestions of practices and strategies for maintaining personal wellness for family
members, caregivers, peer support specialists, any of the three above, and strategies that
can be applied in different environments.
Peer-run or family-run organizations, community mental health centers, homes, as well as many
others.
Today we're going to really be focusing on the fourth part of the series.
In the first and second sessions, we focused in on wellness and peer support.
Then we focused in on the organizational strategies in session, or module three.
Today is incorporating reflective practices.
We're really excited to really help you to look at some of these strategies, to think
about how you can use these in your work.
Really, the way we look at incorporating the reflective practices today, and Cathy's going
to do a wonderful job of really bringing you through a process and a wonderful toolkit
that will be available after the webinar, is how we see the work that we do as peer
support workers, or family support workers, the competencies and values and principles
that guide our work.
We'll be reflecting on these as we think about how to enhance our personal capacity for wellness,
for ourselves and for the people we work with, really to help support others' healing and
recovery.
Very, very important elements that you're going to be walked through today.
We want to show you how this practice of self-reflection, and how we can help look at enhancing our
personal capacity, really relates to the core competencies, principles, and values that
underlie.
Especially, we're going to be focusing on the recovery-oriented focus.
The person-centric principle.
The idea that peer support is voluntary, that it's relationship-focused, and really important,
the trauma-informed nature of the work that we do, to be mindful of that reflective, and
help to be using strategies that are really going to help other people, as well as we're
going to be looking at our own self-care.
Again, when we look at the self-reflective practices in the session today, they're very
congruent, and in line with peer support values.
The values of mutuality; open-mindedness; empathy; respect; being transparent, very
important, especially connected to the recovery principles; being hopeful; facilitating change;
and again, related to recovery, being person-driven.
We're really excited to bring you into this process today, and I'm going to turn over
the session to Cathy Cave, who's going to walk us through some really important strategies
today, and really, hopefully hear some good dialogue from you today, to see how you can
put this into your work.
Cathy Cave: Thanks, Peggy.
My name is Cathy Cave, and I'm the co-director on SAMHSA's programs to achieve wellness.
I really wanted to spend some time today talking about use of reflective practice, which is
a helpful tool in any organization where staff are interacting with other human beings.
This is not an approach that's specific to peer support, but easily can be incorporated
into peer support.
Again, not specifically designed for family support, or for caregivers, but easily folded
into these practices, and allows us to really think for a few moments about the kinds of
interactions.
Are we focused on the work in the way that we intend to be, whether it's paid or not
paid peer support.
Whether we are thinking about, in our role of family support specialist, and as youth
advocates, are we doing the work that we intend to do, and are we doing it in the way that
we intend to do it, so that everything that we practice is in line with the values, with
the competencies, and the principles of the organizations that we work in?
It's really taking time to think through, that being trauma-informed looks like something.
That trauma-informed means that we're spending time thinking about the impact of the work
on the people we serve, the impact of the work on the staff who are doing the work,
the impact of the work on communities as whole, and on our organizations.
Really thinking about, it's not just, what's our individual and personal experience, and
personal history with trauma, it's also recognizing that many, many, many folks who are working
in human services are trauma survivors.
With those experiences comes a recognition of, we are absolutely able and capable of
doing amazingly good work that is helpful, that supports other people, that is intentional,
that the experiences that we share are actually helpful for others to hear and experience
what we've learned from ours, and to really open up conversation around, how do we think
about our role in recovery, and our recovery practices, or our healing practices, and share
those practices in a way that enlightens, enhances, and supports other people.
For those of us who are on the line and participating in the webinar today, who are in any role
of supporting other human beings, reflective practice can be a support, can be useful,
it can be helpful to you in all that you do.
Reflection offers this opportunity for people to focus on whether or not they're acting
in line with the competencies, values, and principles, but also in our time today, we'll
be talking about what we can do when we find ourselves not to be in line with those principles.
How do we acknowledge what's happened, press pause, really think through what our experience
has been, and how we can do things differently for the future?
In the helping professions, we really are thinking about reflection as a tool for all
of us.
It's a resource for considering both what's happened, what we've experienced, and our
personal responses to those experiences, and then how we interact with others.
It does mean stepping back from intense experiences, and our hands-on work, and taking the time
to wonder, to be compassionate for yourself, to think through, "How can I be better?
What am I feeling, what am I noticing, what am I thinking about?"
Attending to those needs, so that we're not getting buried and buried and buried in negative
interactions, and then having negative interactions with the people that we intend to support.
Really taking an opportunity, again, to think about that being trauma-informed looks like
something, that how we are is incredibly important to what we do, and asking, "How am I in my
work right now?" and being able to think about that, come up with an answer for that, and
make change in stepping forward in a different way.
Again, it's not specific to peer support, and family support, and caregiving.
I would be having this same conversation with clinicians, or with teachers, or with health
care providers.
This is a useful process for anyone who's working in the helping professions.
Reflective approaches are useful in that there's an opportunity to think about the event or
the circumstance that happened.
So, what actually happened?
And then, separate from what happened, being able to sit with a trusted other and work
through, think about thoughts and feelings about that.
Some of us are folks who like to talk about our feelings, can easily tap into that.
Others of us are more comfortable in a thinking space.
It's the event that happened, and then separate from that event, thoughts and/or feelings
about what happened.
Being able to separate those things out and talk through, think through, "What's the impact
on me?
What's the impact on others?"
And then checking perspectives about that.
While self-reflection is useful, a reflective practice with someone else, whether it's another
colleague who provides peer support or family support, or a supervisor, or a trusted other
in some other capacity, really thinking about ... When an event happens, we don't all experience
it the same.
So, someone that we can check in with to say, "These are my thoughts and my feelings, but
I wonder about what other people experienced."
If I'm a trusted colleague, and someone comes to me for a reflective interaction, what I
can offer is questions, to say, "Who else was there?
What do you think they experienced?"
Or, "I witnessed this, and this is what I experienced."
Being able to provide perspective that sparks curiosity around, this is my perspective of
who I am, but I also wonder what other people thought and experienced of me in that moment.
The last piece of reflection is really a collaborative conversation, or partnering around, "How do
we move forward differently?
What else could we do?
What else could we say?
What else could we think about?"
One of the useful questions in thinking about moving forward is wondering, Were there any
unused resources, or untapped resources?
Sometimes, in peer support, family support, and caregiving, we're so used to offering
our experience that we may, for example, make a decision for someone else, rather than allowing
them to make their own decision.
Whereas, instead of clarifying options, what we've done is overstepped what our role is.
Collaboration to move forward is a way to really think about that, and process, how
do we step forward differently?
How do we negotiate?
For example, are we on mutuality?
How do we offer support and share our own recovery or healing experience, rather than
to say to someone, "This is what you should do."
These are examples of how perspective checking can be useful, and collaboration to move forward
can help design a plan for next steps, again, whether with colleagues or with a supervisor,
that feel more open, more hopeful, and more respectful of mutuality and caregiving.
By trying out methods of reflection and personal inquiry, we can nurture greater self-awareness,
imagination, and creativity.
What I would add to that is that we can also enhance our capacity for empathy.
We can also enhance our capacity for cultivating more self-reflection.
It's a practice.
The more I do, the more I practice, and the better I can get at that.
While it may be new, or it may be uncomfortable in the beginning, or it may feel like a script
for conversation, that more practice allows you to make it your own.
This is a picture that was developed by a colleague of mine, Michael Johnan, around,
what is self-reflective process, or a co-reflective process might look like.
This is a visual of what I was just sharing.
Its discussion around the event or experience that this is what happened.
Separate from what happened is sharing thoughts and feelings about that.
I had an interaction with someone as a family support person, and it didn't go well.
I didn't leave the interaction feeling well.
I didn't think the other person left the interaction feeling well, so when I meet with someone,
let's say my supervisor, about it, when we talk, I want to start first with what happened,
and then come to thoughts and feelings around it.
What would be helpful from the person I trust to have this conversation, is a reminder to
hold those thoughts and feelings for a bit, and focus on what happened.
Then, let's get to sharing thoughts and feelings.
It also gives us an opportunity to consider perspectives and feedback.
In a supervisory role, and again, this is true in any service setting.
This is not specifically designed for peer support, but can be incredibly useful for
peer support and family support.
Really thinking through then, with a trusted other, were there any other options?
If someone else witnessed this, could I get the feedback from the other person?
If we're talking about it in supervision, my supervisor could offer things like, "Our
policy is..." or "Our practice is..."
"In the past, I've noticed that you've done this."
Sometimes checking for perspective is reminding us of previous success.
It's really thinking through then, what do we need to consider about the interaction?
How are we responding to one another?
If I was in an interaction with someone I was offering peer support to, and I didn't
leave feeling good about it, or the person didn't leave feeling good about it, conversation
with my supervisor might involve, "What did you notice that tells you that the other person
didn't feel good about it?"
"What did you notice that tells you that you weren't feeling good about it?"
And, "Let me give you some feedback about what our standard practice is.
This is how we handle the situation."
Or that there are rules, for example, around transportation in a personal vehicle, and
someone asked me for a ride, and I said I really can't, and the person was upset, I
didn't feel like I was helpful.
What my supervisor can be really helpful in reminding me is, "You know, our policy is
that we don't transport in our personal vehicles.
What other community resources are in place that you might support the person to access?"
It's an opportunity to change the conversation, and to reconsider the challenge and open up
possibilities for creative solutions.
That's the piece, then, that is about partnering for solutions and a plan.
This is collaborative in that, if I'm having this conversation with my supervisor, there
is working together on what might be useful and helpful.
If I'm having this conversation with a colleague, it would be really important for the colleague
to know the steps of reflective practice, so that we can together talk through, think
through the situation that happened, and what we can do to be better next time.
In co-reflection in peer support and family support, what's happening is that, what the
process does, is it moves from an individual feeling challenged, or frustrated, or isolated,
or distressed themselves, to feeling supported and strengthened, renewed and hopeful.
The goal is to provide an opportunity to share experience, to collaborate for solutions,
by being present, by employing curiosity, by really checking perspective and asking
questions about those perspectives, to get support, to get clarity, and to partner.
If the person I'm using co-reflection with doesn't understand the process, it may just
become venting.
What we know happens in human services is, when we're venting, we're usually venting
about the people we're serving.
There usually is not a positive outcome to that.
Venting, in and of itself, if I get it all out, I may feel momentarily better.
It does not lead to a more creative solution.
When we check perspective, and partner for creative solutions, it's more likely that
we move from venting and being frustrated and experiencing distress, to actually coming
up with, looking for, seeking solutions that we can then put into practice.
It's much more hopeful.
It's much more strength-based.
It's much more supportive of both the people who are doing the work of supporting others,
and of people receiving services.
Really, an opportunity to think differently about how we vent, how we express distress,
and how we can turn that into really constructive work using a reflective practice.
The goal of using reflection, co-reflection, in peer support work and family support work,
is to explore what's happening, and to provide opportunities to enhance emotional wellness.
It's a chance to enhance our skills, to get more practice at actually using reflection,
being self-reflective, and having that be a constructive learning experience.
There's an opportunity for balance, and restoring balance.
The feeling that work is overwhelming, or a situation is overwhelming or frustrating,
can come through this kind of conversation, and we come out the other side feeling more
balanced and more connected.
Both connected to ourselves, and connected to the person that we're serving, or the youth
and families that we serve.
Really thinking about how we take that step and experiment with a reflective process.
It's a way to discuss thoughts and feelings related to the interactions that occur in
our work.
This is not a process for spending work time sorting through individuals' personal challenges.
That may happen, but that's not necessarily what the process is designed to do.
The process is designed to bring work challenges that have lots of strong feelings around them
to supervision, or to co-reflection, so that the outcome is better for the people we serve.
In the process of that, as an individual person providing peer support, I can grow and learn
and change, but it's also around, how do we provide service to others that's in line with
our mission, vision, and values of the organization?
It enhances social wellness, enhances occupational wellness.
When we think about this as a wellness approach, many of the eight dimensions of wellness can
be supported by co-reflective work, and by reflection and supervision.
The checking perspectives is checking yours, it's checking mine, it's checking ours, and
those of anyone else that might be in the mix.
Sometimes that's at the organization that we work in.
There are rules and practices and policies that will offer perspective.
Sometimes it's the perspective of my supervisor, and also mine.
It might be the perspectives of others who work together, and perspectives of people
that we're supporting.
Really thinking about making this an active process that enhances the work that we do,
because it allows us to look inward, and think about our own thoughts and feelings related
to the work, so that the work we do has better outcomes.
Has more focus, has more balance, has more connection, and ultimately more respect for
the relationships we have for the people that we provide support to.
Often, as in any human service organization, and any human interactions, sometimes there
are disconnections.
When disconnections occur, part of self-reflection is to try to recognize that.
But it can be difficult, because when we're in distress, or we're feeling overwhelmed,
or in the struggle or the challenge, it's hard to recognize that.
A reflective process can help in servicing where disconnections take place, and then
working to repair those disconnections.
There's a values check-in, as part of this work, and it's considering, where do our actions
and experiences align with our work, with our competencies, with our principles and
values, and where is there a disconnection with those same competencies, principles,
and values?
It's not to say we don't have good intentions.
If you're doing the work that we do in all the different service systems, and in all
the different kinds of mental health settings, and all the different kinds of substance use
settings, it's thinking about, in the work that we do, where people are in recovery,
or people are healing, how do we have actions that are in alignment with what we know about
how hard those experiences are?
When someone is in treatment for substance abuse, it's thinking about, how can we be
a supportive partner?
There are ways that we act in line with those values, and times that we don't.
When supporting families, we know dignity and respect are high values to see in the
work that we do, to see them in evidence, so as a family supporter, how do I make sure
that I do that?
When we move forward together, after coming through this process, what we're able to think
about then is, did I check in about, do I feel supported?
Did I check in, does the family feel supported?
Do I feel hopeful?
Am I acting in line with the plans and intentions that I intended to be using in the first place?
And sometimes, that can be really hard work, so having trusted others in place where you
can have these kinds of conversations is useful, and something for us all to think about as
we consider the work that we do.
One of the challenges for us as we're providing peer support and family support is that it
can easily become a space where we don't feel like we have the support we need.
Making sure that you do, and making sure that there's mechanisms in the places where you
work are available.
As part of this webinar series, today we're offering a guide for enhancing personal capacity
for wellness, and wellness for peer supporters and family supporters, strategies for wellbeing,
self-care, and relapse prevention.
The guide will be available at the end of the webinar, and you can download it, but
I wanted to take a few minutes to walk through some of the resources and material that's
here, as part of the guide itself.
Before I jump into this, I wanted to check in with Peggy and see if she had anything
to add.
Dr. Peggy Swarbrick : No, I'm really excited, Cathy, what you talked about with the reflection.
It's been really important, I think, and I think as we look at, in the webinar, this
guide that's just a wonderful tool that I think will really pull together a lot of what
you said, what's happened in the previous modules, to really help think about how we
can really become more self-aware, think about what we're doing, and really important, so
we can take care of ourselves, but most importantly be supporting others.
I'm excited to see us move into the guide, and really then look forward to hearing the
questions from participants today.
Cathy Cave: Sounds good.
Thank you so much.
As we take a look and talk a little more about the guide itself, what I think is important
to share is that it starts from strength.
This is a resource that offers a way to think about the work that we do, and how we are
in the work that we do.
For those of us who have people that we can trust in our lives, that provides opportunities
frequently for reflection and guidance, that's a gift and it's amazing and helpful.
But there are times that you may be alone, or you may be wondering, "Where do I start
this process of self-reflection, or expand or enhance my process of self-reflection?"
The guide is designed to cultivate and increase self-awareness, and to give opportunities
for that practice.
There's opportunities to reflect on self-care practice, that can support sustaining us in
our relationships, and remaining connected to the people we serve, but also, again, to
keep in touch with our empathy.
The guide itself starts from strength, and offers an opportunity to inventory the resources
that you have available to you any day.
It's thinking through, these are my strengths, these are my skills and talents, and this
is what I can tap into.
These resources actually help me day in and day out.
My resources include, for example, family.
My resources include quiet space to meditate.
My resources include a neighborhood where I can walk and access other kinds of wellness
tools.
When I think about, what are my available resources, there's a vast list of possibilities,
and on any given day I may choose one or two to practice.
There's an opportunity for that in the way the guide is designed.
There's also some questions about our responses to distress, and what kinds of things are
typically distressing, and then what kinds of support it can bring to bear on those days
when those stressors are present.
Again, like all relationships, peer and family support can have challenges, and can have
disconnections.
The guide offers ways to walk through or navigate difficult conversations, or difficult interactions.
Part of that process is to think about planning and preparation.
In a self-reflection, I might as, "What was my intention going into this meeting today,
or into this visit today, or into this conversation?"
The guide offers opportunities to really prompt thinking about, right from the beginning,
what were my intentions?
What were my hopes?
And did I act in line with them?
There's exploration of, how did I plan for this meeting?
How did I extend the invitation to the person I was meeting with, or the family I was meeting
with?
There are questions also to prompt thoughts about mutuality.
What we've found when we started talking to folks around and about wellness, and about
how to recognize when disconnections occur, at the source of many of the disconnections
is the idea that, although we intended to behave in mutual ways, and not use power over,
and to offer choices, and to give individuals every opportunity to voice what their strengths
are, to voice what their concerns are, and to partner for a solution, every once in a
while, situations come up where, because of our own personal experience, someone who is
offering peer support or family support might say, "You should do this."
At the moment we start telling people, "You should," or "This is what you should do,"
rather than, "Here's options, here's what was helpful to me in sharing my recovery or
healing journey...
" When we do the "You should," it steps on the principles around voice, and choice, and
mutuality.
You start to use power over in these really subtle ways, and sometimes not so subtle.
There are questions in the guide that actually prompt conversation, prompt thinking around
mutuality.
How did you get there?
What did you understand that the other person wanted, or that the family wanted?
And how did you honor that?
I
think one of the other challenges that's come up is that very often we start conversations
in the middle, and one of the first steps in conversation, because of experience, that
is really important, is that the people we connect with in our work of peer support and
family support have often experienced trauma, and that whatever the source of that trauma,
there's a need to negotiate physical and emotional safety.
Is this a safe and comfortable place to meet?
Is this a way of having conversation that feels comfortable to you, and safe to you?
It's actually servicing and asking those questions in an upfront way to negotiate physical and
emotional safety, and then to help create the conditions.
What I mean by that is, there's a prompt in the guide that says, "Did you attend to physical
and emotional safety?
How do you know?"
It's getting concrete confirmation that the way we're engaging in peer support and family
support and caregiving actually does feel supportive, does feel like a gift and an add
to the family or the individual's experience, rather than something they're putting up with
because they're part of a program.
It's having conversations about that, and the guide offers some guidance around how
to do that.
It's also important to clarify the limits of the relationship, and the boundaries of
a relationship.
Again, in peer support and family support, it's important to identify and be very transparent
about those limits, and the guide offers opportunities for folks to check in about that.
Did I communicate what my role is, what my purpose is, what my intention is?
Did I actually open up a conversation about it?
Is that something that the person or family is interested in?
Really thinking through how to be more transparent about those conversation, and the guide has
prompts to do that.
The guide also prompts some thinking about how choices were offered, if choices were
offered, and then, were the answers respected?
I think, one of the other pieces that's important is in prompting around judgment.
We all have these great intentions in our work, and our values in peer support and family
support and caregiving really speak to being nonjudgmental, and as human beings, we can
be judgmental.
It's not that this is not likely to happen.
It's likely to happen.
It's how we navigate when it does.
The guide prompts some thinking around judgment, and where was I judgmental?
When was I judgmental?
And how do I know?
And then, what do I do about that?
It's walking through these ideas around mutuality, dignity, respect, empathy, compassion, judgment
and non-judgment, and then thinking through, again, how we use our own recovery journey,
our own healing, in the process of supporting others.
There are some prompts in the guide about exactly that.
It's very often in our work, and why there's so much value in peer support and family support,
is our own recovery or healing journeys have learning for us and are things others can
learn from.
In that shared learning, it can be sometimes difficult to tell how much of my recovery
journey is important for me to share, or how much of my healing journey is important to
share.
How much of my family's story is relevant to this family's story?
To be able to think about that in a way that's related to the hopes and intentions, and what
the family or individual that we're working with is hoping for from this conversation.
If we're not checking in about that, what I like to say is, "Somebody might be getting
a whole box of Cathy who doesn't need a whole box of Cathy."
It's how do we think about, these are the pieces that are important, and as we work
together, we may share additional pieces.
I want to pause for a second here and just check in.
Peggy, did you want to add anything on what we've talked about so far?
Dr. Peggy Swarbrick : No, I just really feel...
I'm wondering if we can maybe just show the guide, just a photo of the front of it so
folks will know what to be looking for?
Cathy Cave: Sure.
Dr. Peggy Swarbrick : I think if we can move to just kind of show that, that might be good.
Here's the cover of the guide, and I think this will be available.
I think that as you talk through it, and as I'm aware of the guide, I think it's just
going to be a wonderful tool to start working through in our own work, because this is really
great work, but sometimes there are challenges.
I think the guide really provides some good prompting, thinking.
I like the way you talk about, it prompts that thinking about things.
I do think there are, I guess we can wait 'til the cut, there's a couple questions.
We want to get more questions, so we just want to remind folks, because we're going
to be moving to that in a few minutes, to add your questions.
I see there are a few questions in the queue, so we'll be moving to that.
I think we do have one there, we'll be able to address that after we get through one more
slide.
I really just encourage folks to download this and think about what Cathy's walked us
through in terms of this self-reflection.
I think that this tool is going to be wonderful for us to really think about our work, and
really learn and grow in our work together with the people we serve.
Thanks, Cathy, and maybe we can move on to the next slide and then get to our questions.
Cathy Cave: Actually, before we move on, I wanted to share one more section that the
guide has in it.
There's a piece around, and it relates directly, Peggy, to what you were just saying around,
do I have my own supports?
Do I have enough support?
As we're doing the work of peer supporters and family supporters, there's some prompting
around, do I feel like I have what I need?
Do I feel as if I can behave in ways that are mutual?
Do I feel that I have my own biases and hot buttons, and can I check in about those things?
There's some prompting to look at that, and again, increase self-reflection in the area
of, do I have what I need?
Who do I go to for support?
This is no different than, again, any other organization, or any other kind of work, where
we're doing work with individuals and families.
We bring our personal selves into these interactions, and we don't really leave things at the door.
We have our own life experience, and sometimes stuff comes up for us.
As we're doing the work, really thinking about, how do I connect, stay connected and grounded
to myself, what kinds of resources I have, and whether or not I need to build in additional
supports just to encourage me and enhance the work that I do?
There's also, the one last thing in the guide I wanted to mention, there's a worksheet that's
available as part of the guide, and you can print out multiples of those of course, around
ideas I'd like to try, and then resources to get there.
Again, we've tried to craft the guide to be something that is a practical tool to enhance
self-reflection, and to strengthen the supports that are available to each and every one of
us.
Peggy, I'll turn this over to you.
Dr. Peggy Swarbrick : Yes, so as we heard Cathy talk through, and I think, that last
section in the guide that, Cathy, you mentioned, about the trying new ideas, I think that's
a really important piece of it, and the way it's outlined is really essential, because
we're going to be trying and learning and growing.
I think one of the things that kind of brings us full circle to the earlier modules where
we talked about wellness and peer support, that was module one and two, that we really
think about how, when we want to enhance our personal capacity for wellness, we want to
enhance the capacity of others to be well, and move into recovery, and stay in recovery.
This reflection really affects and impacts our wellness, I think, in all of the dimension,
but particularly, I think, the four that are listed here, I just want to say a few things
about.
I think in terms of occupational wellness, doing this is going to really keep up the
fire in the belly around the work that we do.
Keeping, really, our passion for this work.
Sustaining our capacity to do the work.
I think the more we can bring these kind of reflective practices into our work, into our
thinking, into our being, it's going to really help us to stay fresh, stay focused, stay
really motivated and inspired to really deal with some of the challenges we may face, and
some of the inevitable stressors that we often feel.
Also, the balance, sometimes.
It becomes imbalanced, just working and caring for people a lot, and seeing some of the struggles
and ups and downs people are going through, it does affect us.
This reflective process is really going to keep that up, to be able to enhance our capacity,
as well as sustain it.
Again, with the emotional wellness, it's going to help really heighten that skill in self-awareness,
becoming much more aware of our strengths, and the areas we want to really try to improve
on, to try to help do the work in a way that we feel follows the competencies, values,
and principles that we know peer support is grounded in.
Again, it's going to really cultivate that self-care piece, and that emotional well-being.
Really important to sustain that compassion for ourselves and others.
This is a really important tool.
Let's take, one of the questions we're going to get, I think, really relates to this a
lot, intellectual wellness.
This is just an amazing tool that's going to help us to be able to grow and evolve ourselves
in the work.
It's about intellectual wellness and that ability to learn new skills, try it in other
parts of our life, try it in this part of our life, and I think that's one of the things
that reflection really does help us to do, so we can be able to unlock a lot more of
our creative abilities in the work that we do.
With social wellness, it's definitely, and again, the workbook gives you a really, really
nice outline around thinking about your own supporters, and the own support that you need
in this work.
It's going to really, then, help us to do that work, to connect, keep and form and sustain
those relationships, and again, thinking beyond just the interaction one-on-one, to communities.
Getting more communities.
I think one of the things that will be nice, that folks can think about in their family
or peer support work, is to be doing this together with other people who are doing the
work, and this tool can be a really great resource to help do together with others.
I think that what we've heard today, the guide that you'll be able to look at will also really
help support yourself in these four dimensions, and many of the other dimensions of wellness.
Cathy, did you want to just, do you have any other thoughts about the reflection, and how
the reflection supports wellness?
Cathy Cave: I do.
One thing I would share is that, and I was the director of training in a peer-run program,
and one of the tools that we used in supervision was the reflective cycle.
It's just that one-page handout.
And we talked a lot about how the different interactions that were challenging would come
up, and we'd process through this kind of cycle, and what we learned is that staff were
really comfortable using it.
I supervised trainers, and that the trainers were able to just pick it up and use it, and
use the process with one another.
Again, initially, it felt, it's new, so it feels like a script, but people started to
recognize that this process gave them more practice being self-reflective, actually helped
support staff as they were doing their work.
Related to occupational wellness, it gave people opportunities to come to work, do good
work, and not take home things leftover from the day.
That was incredibly helpful.
It was an opportunity that staff could do together in co-reflection, and it increased
their capacity for supporting each other in ways that were really incredibly constructive,
and it added to support for their work.
Just to say that there is really an opportunity for engaging in a process that both lets you
have open expression of, "This is what was happening for me at the time," and to come
to a place of, "This is what I need to do about it," or that just talking about it was
enough, and there isn't anything more I need to do about it.
It was something new to learn, it supports emotional growth, supports social connection,
and supports occupational wellness in that way.
Dr. Peggy Swarbrick : We're really ... It's important to hear some of the questions, so
we encourage you to enter your questions into the chat box, but Cathy, we do have a question
here.
One of our, Randy, asks, "What are some tools for dealing with people who create some kind
of challenging feelings within us?
When people, we feel, they create a feeling, we feel not so connected to them.
What are some tools?"
Maybe we could talk a little about how this tool can be used to help when someone starts
to create that feeling within us.
Cathy Cave: Sure.
Thank you for the question, and I appreciate that.
How I would reframe the conversation is, the feeling is mine.
If I'm feeling disconnected, I need to own that, and that it might be, I might have a
sensitivity to something.
I might have an awareness of something.
I am a trauma survivor, so sometimes it isn't the person, it might be a tone that they use
when they're talking, that has, there's no intention of harm to me, it's just my response
to what's happening for them.
It's recognizing that we need to manage our responses, and certainly, this reflective
process is designed for this.
It's a way where you talk through them.
Something happened, and I felt this way.
It's walking through what happened separate from how I felt about it.
I spent time with this person, and I was annoyed.
I was disconnected.
I was frustrated.
I have to own my own thoughts and feelings about that.
First, it's what happened.
Then, how I feel about it.
The checking for perspective is sitting with a trusted other who can talk with me and ask
questions about, what is it that's happening that might be contributing to this?
And sometimes it's our own history.
Sometimes it's previous experience with a person, or that person.
It's getting through, the perspective checking is exactly that, for talk about what's going
on that this response is happening, and really, why am I responding in this way to this person?
And thinking then about going forward.
Is there more work I need to do?
Part of the planning and problem-solving and partnering is really about, what do I need
to do differently?
If the person has done something to me, or I experienced something with them that doesn't
feel quite right, I need to name that and talk about that.
Most of us, working in the organizations where we work, there may not be a lot of options
for, oh, some other staff person can work with that person.
We need to get clear about what our own stuff is, and how do we acknowledge it, get the
support we need to address it, and go work, do the work that we said we were going to
do in peer support and family support.
Most people who come to us, and that we encounter in our services are not here because they're
having a great day, or things are feeling really good, and there's not a need.
For whatever reason someone is present in our services, there's a need for that.
As providers, our responsibility is to provide the service.
The reflective process gets at, what's the barrier between you and your capacity to do
the work with that person, or with that family, and then move forward in a more productive
way.
Dr. Peggy Swarbrick : Some of you may have noticed that the guide is not available from
a file transfer pop-up on your screen.
Something may come up on your screen, so you can download that guide now, and I really
encourage you to, because it really, as Cathy just mentioned, it's the question we got,
I think there's some section in this guide that, Randy, you can go to and start to look
through it, and you can see how what Cathy just explained can, the guide will really
help you to walk through that.
Another question, Cathy, is, "How do you get," sounds like, "How do you get your supervisor
to allow us to use this?"
Cathy Cave: Sure.
What I so appreciate the question is, really, it connects to what we were talking about
in last week's webinar around organizational support.
It's bringing the tools and resources from the webinar series to supervisors, and organization,
and sharing that, and really talking it through.
If there are barriers, or concerns, or additional training or information is needed just to
help implement using reflection, certainly contact us at PAW, and we can offer some technical
assistance.
Virtual technical assistance around that.
We can do a conversation with your team.
We can do a conversation with your supervisor and you together, or the organization as a
whole, to really talk through how to incorporate reflection into the conversations we're already
having.
It just enhances the outcomes.
Dr. Peggy Swarbrick : Great.
Just another question, "Does the guide include prompts for managing our response to people
who seem to only vent or catastrophize?"
Cathy Cave: Again, not that level of specificity, but what I would offer, and there was also
another comment about venting that I wanted to speak to, in that people are who they are,
and their struggles are what they are.
Our role as supporters is to meet people where they are, and to offer other kinds of options
and resources.
When there's been catastrophe in your life, and you've survived a great deal of trauma
and distress, it makes sense that as someone seeking peer support, that's what you would
bring.
People come to us in peer support and family support as they are.
Our job as providers is to be more supportive.
It's to understand what's happening, and if we're providing peer support, and providing
family support, it's to do that with kindness, with compassion, with empathy.
When, as a peer supporter, I'm catastrophizing, or I'm only seeing the worst in people, that's
a sign that reflective support and supervision might be really helpful to me.
Again, it's considering that when we offer peer support, we find people as we find them,
and it's not on us to ask them to be different.
It's not on us to ask them to be better, or to get themselves together.
It's to prove support for their journey of how they're going to do those things.
Its patience, and kindness, and compassion, and clarity, but also defining the limits
of the relationship.
If someone is in distress, and they're in distress every day, and you can't be with
them every day, be clear about what you can do.
Reflection is about, it's a tool to improve self-reflection and self-management for those
of us who are peer support, family support, and caregiving work.
To speak to venting for a little bit, again, what I find with venting is that it's one-way,
and it's usually talking about the people we serve.
I don't believe that that's a healthy or helpful process.
I think when we can say, "This is what happened, this is what I'm frustrated about," and we
own it, "I'm upset, I can't connect, I can't be supportive, I can't navigate," I own those
words.
I own those feelings.
I own those frustrations.
Then it's through the process of, let's check for perspectives.
What are other people experiencing?
How are they experiencing me?
And then partnering to move forward differently.
Talking about hard things is always, always going to be good for peer support, family
support, and caregiving.
Talking about those things, always good.
Venting, where it's just dumping bad information, usually negative information about people
we're supposed to be supporting, I don't find that particularly helpful.
Dr. Peggy Swarbrick : Yeah.
Right.
Well, we've come to the end of our webinar, today.
We're really excited that we've had so many questions, that folks have seemed really interested
in using this guide, have been part of this series.
We want to, there's some references here that we encourage you to go to that have formed
some of the basis of the webinar, things that can really help enhance your understanding
of the things that we've worked on today, and covered today.
I want to thank you for participating, and encourage you to complete the evaluation to
let us know how you see this in your work, and other kinds of things that we could offer,
or could be available to help you in your work of peer support and family support.
We really encourage you to do the evaluation.
If you're interested in more of the modules, you can contact us at PAW, at the email here,
or the phone number for Programs to Achieve Wellness.
We want to really thank everyone for coming onto the call today, and hearing the good
work that Cathy and folks have put together, and thanks so much.
Cathy Cave: Thank you, everyone.
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