Time and Stress Management 1. Introduction · Published by Articulate® Storyline Time and Stress Management 1. Introduction 1.1 California Common Core 3.0 Notes:

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Time and Stress Management

1. Introduction

1.1 California Common Core 3.0

Notes:


1.2 Welcome

Notes:

Audio Narration:

Welcome to the eLearning course, Time and Stress Management. This course is part of the Common Core 3.0 Foundation Block.

1.3 Navigation


Notes:

Audio Narration:

Use the PREVIOUS and NEXT buttons to move through the course. You can also skip to individual screens by clicking the screen title in the Menu. You can read the audio transcript for each screen by clicking Transcript. You will find several useful handouts, including an audio transcript for this course that you can download, by clicking Resources. This course should take about one hour to complete.

1.4 Introduction

Notes:

Audio Narration:

Time and stress management is a fundamental skill that is crucial for child welfare social workers to learn and practice. No matter what role you have in your agency, your ability to manage your time and stress effectively will help you meet the goals of your responsibilities.

One of the best ways you can enhance your resiliency as a social worker is to recognize the signs of stress that occur on the job and use effective strategies to reduce their negative effects. What you learn in this eLearning course will be linked to practice with specific strategies for managing your time and stress.


1.5 About This Course

Notes:

Audio Narration:

This eLearning course is designed to introduce you to information about managing your stress levels and learning time management skills.

In this course, you’ll gain a better understanding about the need for time and stress management skills in a child welfare services context and setting. You’ll learn the goals for time and stress management skills for various roles and positions within child welfare, taking into account professional values, social work practices, human development and county policies and procedures.

You’ll explore resilience and how it relates to developing effective time and stress management techniques as well as how to maintain your mental and physical health and the need to practice self-care within a child welfare framework.

Finally, you’ll learn about cultural considerations regarding time and stress management.


1.6 Learning Objectives

Notes:

Audio Narration:

Upon completion of this eLearning course, you will be able to:

Recognize the physiological and emotional signs of stress;

Identify the common origins and consequences of work-related stress in the field of public child welfare;

Recognize how secondary traumatic stress (STS) and other stressors contribute to burnout and ineffectiveness;

Identify strategies for resilience in coping with stress; and

Identify three time management strategies that you can employ in the workplace.


1.7 Values

Notes:

Audio Narration:

Maintaining your resilience is essential for working with children, youth and families in the child welfare system. Equally important is valuing your mental and physical health and using self-care and stress management techniques as part of providing quality child welfare services.

Valuing effective time management also helps to reduce stress levels in child welfare work. You can also use supervision as a resource for consultation about workload issues, caseload management and setting priorities.

Valuing your own need to use effective time and stress management techniques will help you to keep track of and meet deadlines. All of these things can help you to prioritize the tasks on your caseload to optimize child safety.


2. Goals for Managing Time and Stress

2.1 Goals for Managing Time and Stress

Notes:

Audio Narration:

Being a child welfare worker is a stressful, yet incredibly rewarding job. There are numerous stressors and time sensitive tasks that social workers need to complete on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. In this topic, you’ll learn about the goals for managing time and stress for various roles and positions within child welfare.


2.2 Your Role in Child Welfare

Notes:

Audio Narration:

As we begin, it’s important to have a frame of reference for your learning. What is your role in Child Welfare Services?

Each role in child welfare requires time and stress management skills to meet the goals of your responsibilities. All workers need to understand how our work experiences and stress may affect our professional performance and well-being.

Becoming well-versed in recognizing the signs of stress and burnout can enhance our resiliency as social workers. Practicing effective time management skills can do the same.


2.3 Goals for Managing Time and Stress

Notes:

Audio Narration:

Knowing the goals for managing your time and stress in your role and position as a child welfare worker will help you to maintain your professional values and good social work practice. These goals include:

Identify Barriers to time management;

Develop different techniques for estimating time and dealing with procrastination;

Schedule time/work space management;

Identify signs and symptoms of burnout and secondary trauma;

Develop personal strategies to reduce and/or reframe stress and to build resilience; and

Develop strategies to manage time related tasks.


2.4 Child Welfare Stressors

Notes:

Audio Narration:

Child welfare stressors are inherent in child welfare work. Child welfare workers may experience stress related to the public image and role of child welfare services in our communities. Stress can also occur because child welfare is a helping profession, and workers are exposed to families in crisis, limited resources and high caseloads.

Click each category of child welfare stressors for a description.

Public Image of CWS: Historically, child welfare staff often receive little public recognition for the risk their work entails. News stories rarely focus on the positive aspects of child protection. Instead, the public focus is generally negative which can increase stress and pressure on child welfare workers. In addition, the families we serve are often fearful of CWS, carry the media’s negative image of us and may be resistant in partnering with us.

Role of CWS: Our own multidisciplinary teams and community partners can have misinformation and a misunderstanding of the CWS role, limitations and goals. This can make these community collaborations and partnerships tenuous at times.

Helping Profession: Secondary Traumatic Stress (STS), also known as vicarious trauma, refers to the experience of people - usually professionals - who are exposed to others’ traumatic stories, and as a result, can develop their own traumatic symptoms and reactions. Compassion fatigue is a condition characterized by a gradual lessening of compassion over time. Compassion fatigue is seen as a consequence of STS.

There may be no observable symptoms related to compassion fatigue. It’s essential for child welfare workers to recognize the common origins and consequences of work-related stress in the field of public child welfare and to identify strategies for coping with stress.


You will learn more about trauma and trauma-informed practice in an eLearning and classroom training dedicated to this topic.

Job Related: Child welfare workers will experience readily apparent stress, for example, families in crisis, and may experience subtle or hidden stressors such as misunderstanding agency goals. There are positive stressors that come with this work, for example, a requested change in assignment, and negative stressors like working with limited resources and high caseloads. The combination of exposure to traumatic experiences and stressors inherent in child welfare work can contribute to “worker burnout.”

Public Image of CWS (Slide Layer)


Role of CWS (Slide Layer)

Helping Profession (Slide Layer)


Job Related (Slide Layer)

2.5 County Policy and Procedure

Notes:

Audio Narration:

Each county has policy and procedure on a variety of time sensitive tasks which include:

Contacts (both referrals and monthly contacts) compliance;


Documentation of contacts into CWS/CMS;

Timely completion and submittal of juvenile court reports;

Submission of required documents to supervisors/upper management; and

Notices.

Some counties may use case management tools, such as Safe Measures, to help in managing time sensitive tasks. Be sure to consult your supervisor on what tools they may be using for time management, as well as to ensure you are following your county’s policies and procedures related to compliance and meeting state mandates.

2.6 Burnout in Child Welfare

Notes:

Audio Narration:

Burnout typically refers to worker stress related to the conditions associated with job dissatisfaction.

Stressors related to child welfare work include long hours, excessive paperwork, high caseloads, deadlines, low pay, lack of supervisor support and systemic issues, for example, working within a bureaucracy. Likewise, due to the rules and limits around confidentiality, many child welfare workers are unable to discuss their work with family or supports. As a result, it’s important for you to build workplace relationships so you have others you can discuss sensitive matters with.


2.7 Symptoms of Burnout

Notes:

Audio Narration:

The main symptoms of burnout that child welfare workers may experience can be categorized as physical, emotional, personal and workplace.

Click each category for a description of the symptoms of burnout.

Physical: You may experience chronic fatigue and a sense of depersonalization as a result of burnout.

Emotional: Due to burnout, you may have feelings of helplessness and hopelessness, an inability to cope with your work environment and be emotionally exhausted.

Personal: You may become disillusioned and suffer from negative thoughts about yourself and your job, and feel a reduced sense of personal accomplishment.

Workplace: You may start to miss work or end up late for appointments, provide insufficient care for families and miss important deadlines as a result of burnout.


Physical (Slide Layer)

Emotional (Slide Layer)


Personal (Slide Layer)

Workplace (Slide Layer)


2.8 Secondary Traumatic Stress

Notes:

Audio Narration:

Secondary Traumatic Stress (STS) is a set of observable reactions in the professional from working with traumatized children and families and mirrors the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD.

Rather than the source of trauma emanating from an event directly, it comes to us indirectly through ongoing exposure via engaging with and empathizing with children and families’ trauma stories, writing court reports about our children and families’ experiences, testifying about the case, presenting the case at case consult, etc.

Professionals may or may not be aware of how they have been affected.


2.9 Signs of Secondary Trauma

Notes:

Audio Narration:

There are many symptoms of secondary traumatic stress that child welfare workers may experience. They include:

Recollections, dreams or reminders of the events which cause anxiety or physical reactions;

Feeling flat or feeling emotional numbness;

Avoidance of thoughts or feelings;

Hopelessness;

Avoidance of activities or situations;

Persistent arousal;

Gaps in memory; and

Trouble sleeping or staying asleep.

2.10 Knowledge Check

(Drag and Drop, 10 points, 1 attempt permitted)


Drag Item Drop Target

Chronic fatigue Rectangle 4

Persistent arousal Rectangle 2

Recollections and dreams Rectangle 2

Gaps in memory Rectangle 2

Emotionally exhausted Rectangle 4

Trouble sleeping Rectangle 2

Negative self-concept Rectangle 4

Frequent absenteeism Rectangle 4

Drag and drop properties

Return item to start point if dropped outside the correct drop target

Snap dropped items to drop target (Tile)

Delay item drop states until interaction is submitted


Feedback when correct:

That's right! You matched each symptom with its description.

Feedback when incorrect:

That's not right. The correct response is shown here.

Notes:

Correct (Slide Layer)


Incorrect (Slide Layer)

2.11 Knowledge Check

(Multiple Choice, 10 points, 1 attempt permitted)

Correct Choice

She may be suffering from burnout


She may be suffering from secondary traumatic stress

She is just having a bad day

X All of the above


Good call. Angela could be suffering from burnout, secondary traumatic stress and/or having a

bad day. Any of these responses could be feasible reasons for Angela’s behavior.


Sorry, that's incorrect. Angela could be suffering from burnout, secondary traumatic stress

and/or having a bad day. Any of these responses could be feasible reasons for Angela’s behavior.

Notes:




3. Cultural Considerations

3.1 Cultural Considerations

Notes:

Audio Narration:


How does culture affect our ability to manage time and stress? In this topic, you’ll learn about cultural considerations for managing time and stress.

3.2 Cultural Considerations

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Audio Narration:

Cultural considerations should be taken into account when trying to understand ourselves, our co-workers and our families. We each come from different cultures and have different communication styles. Our cultural perspective also influences our perception of time and stress, and consequently how we manage time and stress. Keep in mind that your preferences or ideal of what is “normal” is your own bias or value based on your upbringing, but may not be someone else’s.

Some specific cultural considerations are:

Gender and/or sexual orientation;

Different styles of communication;

Language;

Governmental and/or authority figures;

Religious practices; and

Immigration status.


3.3 How Culture Affects Time and Stress Management

Notes:

Audio Narration:

There is a relationship between culture and dealing with stressors and time management. As a child welfare worker, it’s important for you to understand your own cultural identity as you reach out to serve others. People of different cultural, national, linguistic, spiritual and ethnic backgrounds may define “stressors” in different ways, deal with stressors in different ways, and use different expressions to describe their experiences. We should always take into account our cultural background and modes of communication.

As child welfare workers, our backgrounds can influence our perceptions of stress and time and how we respond to it. Although time may seem like a very universal thing, different cultures interpret time very differently. In mainstream American society, we think of time in distinct and manageable segments with start and end times, whereas other cultures may perceive time as a flowing commodity. Likewise, interaction with families from different cultures may take more time due to language barriers, and the need to explain how the system works.


3.4 Relationship Between Culture and STS

Notes:

Audio Narration:

It’s also important to consider the role culture may play in how child welfare workers experience STS. Social and cultural realities strongly influence our risk for and experience of trauma, and this includes secondary traumatic stress. Child welfare workers from oppressed communities may be at increased risk for trauma exposure and subsequent development of PTSD and/or secondary traumatic stress. These groups may also have negative views of authority figures including government workers.

These groups may have been impacted by:

Discrimination;

Negative stereotyping; and

Social and economic marginalization, deprivation and powerlessness.

As a result, they can have more severe symptoms for longer periods of time than their majority group counterparts.

Knowing this relationship between culture and how we experience trauma may help us to understand our response to STS as child welfare social workers.


3.5 Trauma-Informed Practice in Child Welfare

Notes:

Audio Narration:

Trauma-informed practice is an approach to engaging people with histories of trauma that recognizes the presence of trauma symptoms and acknowledges the role that trauma has played in their lives. Understanding trauma-informed practice can help you understand the impact secondary traumatic stress can have on you in your job as a child welfare worker. You’ll learn more about trauma and trauma-informed practice in an eLearning course and classroom training dedicated to this topic.

3.6 Reflection Activity

(Essay, 0 points, 1 attempt permitted)


Feedback:

Thank you for your reflections.

Notes:


Thank You (Slide Layer)




Feedback:


Notes:


Goals for Stress Management (Slide Layer)





Feedback:

Thank you for your reflections. Did you consider your cultural upbringing and context when

thinking about the reflection questions? Are you someone who wears stress on your sleeve or

one that hides it well? What are the benefits or costs to either stress response? Thinking about

this now can help you to prepare for future challenges to come.


Notes:

Goals for Stress Management (Slide Layer)



4. Resilience and Reframing Stress

4.1 Resilience and Reframing Stress

Notes:

Audio Narration:

In this topic, you’ll learn about resilience and reframing stress in the field of child welfare.


4.2 Reframing Stress

Notes:

Audio Narration:

So far, we’ve discussed the dangers inherent in child welfare work. However, it wouldn’t be presenting a balanced view of our work if we didn’t talk about how each danger or cost can come with a positive or strength.

Stress. It makes your heart pound, your breathing quicken and your forehead sweat. But while stress has been made into a public health enemy, new research suggests that stress may only be bad for you if you believe it to be. According to Dr. Kelly McGonigal, how we feel about stress matters and we can cultivate a mindset that embraces stress. In doing so, we can actually use stress to provide focus and energy and enhance our resiliency in the field of child welfare work.

Click NEXT to view the video, How to Make Stress Your Friend.


4.3 How to Make Stress Your Friend Video

Notes:

Audio Narration:

Click the Play button to view the video.

Video Transcript:

00:11 I have a confession to make. But first, I want you to make a little confession to me. In the past year, I want you to just raise your hand if you've experienced relatively little stress. Anyone?

00:31 How about a moderate amount of stress?

00:34 Who has experienced a lot of stress? Yeah. Me too.

00:39 But that is not my confession. My confession is this: I am a health psychologist, and my mission is to help people be happier and healthier. But I fear that something I've been teaching for the last 10 years is doing more harm than good, and it has to do with stress. For years I've been telling people, stress makes you sick. It increases the risk of everything from the common cold to cardiovascular disease. Basically, I've turned stress into the enemy. But I have changed my mind about stress, and today, I want to change yours.

01:20 Let me start with the study that made me rethink my whole approach to stress. This study tracked 30,000 adults in the United States for eight years, and they started by asking people, "How much stress have you experienced in the last year?" They also asked, "Do you believe that stress is harmful for your health?" And then they used public death records to find out who died.

01:47 (Laughter)

01:48 Okay. Some bad news first. People who experienced a lot of stress in the previous year had a 43 percent increased risk of dying. But that was only true for the people who also believed


that stress is harmful for your health.

02:07 (Laughter)

02:09 People who experienced a lot of stress but did not view stress as harmful were no more likely to die. In fact, they had the lowest risk of dying of anyone in the study, including people who had relatively little stress.

02:23 Now the researchers estimated that over the eight years they were tracking deaths, 182,000 Americans died prematurely, not from stress, but from the belief that stress is bad for you.

02:36 (Laughter)

02:37 That is over 20,000 deaths a year. Now, if that estimate is correct, that would make believing stress is bad for you the 15th largest cause of death in the United States last year, killing more people than skin cancer, HIV/AIDS and homicide.

02:56 (Laughter)

02:58 You can see why this study freaked me out. Here I've been spending so much energy telling people stress is bad for your health.

03:08 So this study got me wondering: Can changing how you think about stress make you healthier? And here the science says yes. When you change your mind about stress, you can change your body's response to stress.

03:21 Now to explain how this works, I want you all to pretend that you are participants in a study designed to stress you out. It's called the social stress test. You come into the laboratory, and you're told you have to give a five-minute impromptu speech on your personal weaknesses to a panel of expert evaluators sitting right in front of you, and to make sure you feel the pressure, there are bright lights and a camera in your face, kind of like this.

3:50 (Laughter)

03:51 And the evaluators have been trained to give you discouraging, non-verbal feedback, like this.

04:04 (Exhales)

04:05 (Laughter)

04:08 Now that you're sufficiently demoralized, time for part two: a math test. And unbeknownst to you, the experimenter has been trained to harass you during it. Now we're going to all do this together. It's going to be fun. For me.

04:24 Okay.

04:25 (Laughter)

04:26 I want you all to count backwards from 996 in increments of seven. You're going to do this out loud, as fast as you can, starting with 996. Go!

04:38 (Audience counting)

04:40 Go faster. Faster please. You're going too slow.


04:44 (Audience counting)

04:45 Stop. Stop, stop, stop. That guy made a mistake. We are going to have to start all over again.

04:50 (Laughter)

04:51 You're not very good at this, are you? Okay, so you get the idea. If you were actually in this study, you'd probably be a little stressed out. Your heart might be pounding, you might be breathing faster, maybe breaking out into a sweat. And normally, we interpret these physical changes as anxiety or signs that we aren't coping very well with the pressure.

05:12 But what if you viewed them instead as signs that your body was energized, was preparing you to meet this challenge? Now that is exactly what participants were told in a study conducted at Harvard University. Before they went through the social stress test, they were taught to rethink their stress response as helpful. That pounding heart is preparing you for action. If you're breathing faster, it's no problem. It's getting more oxygen to your brain. And participants who learned to view the stress response as helpful for their performance, well, they were less stressed out, less anxious, more confident, but the most fascinating finding to me was how their physical stress response changed.

05:54 Now, in a typical stress response, your heart rate goes up, and your blood vessels constrict like this. And this is one of the reasons that chronic stress is sometimes associated with cardiovascular disease. It's not really healthy to be in this state all the time. But in the study, when participants viewed their stress response as helpful, their blood vessels stayed relaxed like this. Their heart was still pounding, but this is a much healthier cardiovascular profile. It actually looks a lot like what happens in moments of joy and courage. Over a lifetime of stressful experiences, this one biological change could be the difference between a stress-induced heart attack at age 50 and living well into your 90s. And this is really what the new science of stress reveals, that how you think about stress matters.

06:52 So my goal as a health psychologist has changed. I no longer want to get rid of your stress. I want to make you better at stress. And we just did a little intervention. If you raised your hand and said you'd had a lot of stress in the last year, we could have saved your life, because hopefully the next time your heart is pounding from stress, you're going to remember this talk and you're going to think to yourself, this is my body helping me rise to this challenge. And when you view stress in that way, your body believes you, and your stress response becomes healthier.

07:29 Now I said I have over a decade of demonizing stress to redeem myself from, so we are going to do one more intervention. I want to tell you about one of the most under-appreciated aspects of the stress response, and the idea is this: Stress makes you social.

07:48 To understand this side of stress, we need to talk about a hormone, oxytocin, and I know oxytocin has already gotten as much hype as a hormone can get. It even has its own cute nickname, the cuddle hormone, because it's released when you hug someone. But this is a very small part of what oxytocin is involved in.

08:08 Oxytocin is a neuro-hormone. It fine-tunes your brain's social instincts. It primes you to do things that strengthen close relationships. Oxytocin makes you crave physical contact with your friends and family. It enhances your empathy. It even makes you more willing to help and support the people you care about. Some people have even suggested we should snort


oxytocin... to become more compassionate and caring. But here's what most people don't understand about oxytocin. It's a stress hormone. Your pituitary gland pumps this stuff out as part of the stress response. It's as much a part of your stress response as the adrenaline that makes your heart pound. And when oxytocin is released in the stress response, it is motivating you to seek support. Your biological stress response is nudging you to tell someone how you feel, instead of bottling it up. Your stress response wants to make sure you notice when someone else in your life is struggling so that you can support each other. When life is difficult, your stress response wants you to be surrounded by people who care about you.

09:32 Okay, so how is knowing this side of stress going to make you healthier? Well, oxytocin doesn't only act on your brain. It also acts on your body, and one of its main roles in your body is to protect your cardiovascular system from the effects of stress. It's a natural anti-inflammatory. It also helps your blood vessels stay relaxed during stress. But my favorite effect on the body is actually on the heart. Your heart has receptors for this hormone, and oxytocin helps heart cells regenerate and heal from any stress-induced damage. This stress hormone strengthens your heart.

10:14 And the cool thing is that all of these physical benefits of oxytocin are enhanced by social contact and social support. So when you reach out to others under stress, either to seek support or to help someone else, you release more of this hormone, your stress response becomes healthier, and you actually recover faster from stress. I find this amazing, that your stress response has a built-in mechanism for stress resilience, and that mechanism is human connection.

10:50 I want to finish by telling you about one more study. And listen up, because this study could also save a life. This study tracked about 1,000 adults in the United States, and they ranged in age from 34 to 93, and they started the study by asking, "How much stress have you experienced in the last year?" They also asked, "How much time have you spent helping out friends, neighbors, people in your community?" And then they used public records for the next five years to find out who died.

11:26 Okay, so the bad news first: For every major stressful life experience, like financial difficulties or family crisis, that increased the risk of dying by 30 percent. But -- and I hope you are expecting a "but" by now -- but that wasn't true for everyone. People who spent time caring for others showed absolutely no stress-related increase in dying. Zero. Caring created resilience.

11:59 And so we see once again that the harmful effects of stress on your health are not inevitable. How you think and how you act can transform your experience of stress. When you choose to view your stress response as helpful, you create the biology of courage. And when you choose to connect with others under stress, you can create resilience. Now I wouldn't necessarily ask for more stressful experiences in my life, but this science has given me a whole new appreciation for stress. Stress gives us access to our hearts. The compassionate heart that finds joy and meaning in connecting with others, and yes, your pounding physical heart, working so hard to give you strength and energy. And when you choose to view stress in this way, you're not just getting better at stress, you're actually making a pretty profound statement. You're saying that you can trust yourself to handle life's challenges. And you're remembering that you don't have to face them alone.

13:20 Thank you.


13:21 (Applause)

13:31 Chris Anderson: This is kind of amazing, what you're telling us. It seems amazing to me that a belief about stress can make so much difference to someone's life expectancy. How would that extend to advice, like, if someone is making a lifestyle choice between, say, a stressful job and a non-stressful job, does it matter which way they go? It's equally wise to go for the stressful job so long as you believe that you can handle it, in some sense?

13:58 KM: Yeah, and one thing we know for certain is that chasing meaning is better for your health than trying to avoid discomfort. And so I would say that's really the best way to make decisions, is go after what it is that creates meaning in your life and then trust yourself to handle the stress that follows.

14:14 CA: Thank you so much, Kelly. It's pretty cool.

Full screen video plays here (Slide Layer)


4.4 Seeing Stress as a Positive

Notes:

Audio Narration:

As you learned in the video, psychologist Kelly McGonigal urges us to see stress as a positive, and introduces us to an unsung mechanism for stress reduction: reaching out to others.

Research in the area of stress is always developing. We encourage you to continue in your professional development on how best to address stress and self-care for yourself. Be mindful of the benefit and need for having a strong support system that includes family, friends, and colleagues.


4.5 Vicarious Resilience

Notes:

Audio Narration:

Child welfare workers can also vicariously benefit from the courage, strength and perseverance of the children and families we serve.

“Compassion Satisfaction” refers to the satisfaction and pleasure we get from helping and contributing to the greater good of others.

These concepts focus on reframing our perception of the bad or negative experiences of our work.


4.6 Child Welfare Social Work Resilience

Notes:

Audio Narration:

In child welfare agencies, time is very important. It is both necessary and hard to find. Each staff member, and the agency as a whole, must find the time to complete their responsibilities and meet deadlines to ensure children are safe. However, in order to remain psychologically and physically healthy and energized, despite the constant and frequent changes and challenges, we must use time wisely.

To be productive and manage time successfully and remain resilient, child welfare agencies and staff need time to listen, think, plan, act and mend. They also need time to take a breather, take part in decision making, promote positive changes, have fun and take time off.

4.7 Knowledge Check

(Multiple Response, 10 points, 1 attempt permitted)


Correct Choice

X Cultivate a mindset that embraces stress

X Reach out to others

X Develop a strong support system

X Embrace compassion satisfaction


That's right! All of these are ways you can build resilience and reframe stress.


Almost. All of these are ways you can build resilience and reframe stress.

Notes:





5. Strategies to Combat Stress

5.1 Strategies to Combat Stress in Child Welfare Work

Notes:

Audio Narration:

In this topic, you’ll learn about strategies to combat stress in child welfare work.


5.2 Build Resilience

Notes:

Audio Narration:

Understanding what works and what has proven to be effective will help you to combat secondary trauma. Horowitz identified that social workers must build resilience to better combat secondary stress. He suggests two ways to build resilience.

Click each way to learn how to build resilience.

Building Healthy Self-Esteem: The work environment may offer opportunities to foster a healthy self-esteem. However, healthy self-esteem requires much more than feedback from external sources. Social workers must be capable of recognizing personal deficits and weaknesses and be open to building additional strengths.

Being Open to Life’s Opportunities: The ability to be open to life’s opportunities is another way to build resilience. Horowitz indicated that children are naturally open and inquisitive, however, once they have been exposed to trauma, they have a tendency to shut down and become more fearful. This is a similar occurrence in adults, and if it is recognized, then that social worker can make a conscious effort to discourage hopelessness and address the impact of secondary trauma.

Click Resources to download the handout, Ten Characteristics of a Resilient Child Welfare Worker for more information on building resiliency.


Building Healthy Self-Esteem (Slide Layer)

Being Open to LIfe's Opportunities (Slide Layer)


5.3 Strategies to Prevent and Address STS

Notes:

Audio Narration:

A few of the ways that you can prevent and address secondary traumatic stress include attending training about trauma-informed practice and developing self-care techniques to mitigate the impact of stressors on the job. Child welfare staff who monitor their own stress levels and signs of STS, and seek resources to address them, fare better on the job.


5.4 Strategies to Combat Stressors

Notes:

Audio Narration:

Here are a few strategies to help you combat stressors on the job.

Social workers frequently ask families who their support systems are when case planning but, often don’t think about their own support system.

Take time to breathe. Often social workers rush to say something to a family or other collateral parties. Don’t forget to relax, breathe and be thoughtful about what you are about to say.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Express to your supervisor how you may be feeling overwhelmed. Top performers can be burned out very easily by constantly handling complex, emotionally charged cases. To de-stress, discuss your caseload with your supervisor.

5.5 Guidelines for Successful Stress Management




Establish clear, specific,

obtainable goals

Rectangle 7

Start small changes to managing stress Rectangle 7

Start from where you are and build towards

your goal

Rectangle 7

Make one change at a time Rectangle 7

Plan ways to manage stress Rectangle 7

Reward yourself for good work Rectangle 7

Look for ways to control your life Rectangle 7

Manage stress on a daily basis Rectangle 7

Find humor and laugh Rectangle 7





Notes:

Audio Narration:

Denham suggests these guidelines for successful stress management. Take a moment to read these guidelines. Can you identify at least two of Denham’s suggestions that you regularly do as a part of your daily practice?

Drag the items that you use to the space provided, then click SUBMIT.

Thank you (Slide Layer)


5.6 Social Workers Can Support Each Other

Notes:

Audio Narration:

Developing on-going peer support groups can assist workers by sharing strategies that are helpful in dealing with work pressures. Is there a peer support group in your agency that you can join? If not, you may want to check with your co-workers to see if they are interested in starting one.

The learning circle training model can provide a strong support system. This training format provides consistency for the participating workers and supervisors and creates continuity between sessions as participants report back on their action plans at each session. It also encourages networking and ongoing contact, allowing for continued peer-to-peer support, sharing, and learning.

Coaching sessions with a supervisor can also provide additional support.


5.7 Five Domains of Self-Care

Notes:

Audio Narration:

Hendricks identified five domains of self-care for child welfare workers. They are physical, emotional, psychological, spiritual and workplace.

Click Resources to download the handout, Five Domains of Self-Care for a printable version of this list of techniques you can use in your daily practice. You will need these techniques to complete the activities on the next few screens.




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Notes:



Five Domains of Self-Care (Slide Layer)




Feedback:


Thank you for your reflections. Click Continue to hear our thoughts on how you can adopt

effective self-care behaviors.

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Five Domains (Slide Layer)

5.10 Adopting Self-Care Behaviors

Notes:

Audio Narration:

In adopting self-care behaviors, it’s important that you are attending to all five domains of health. Did you notice from the Reflection Activity that you do better in some domains than others? What domains are you strong in and what domains are you lacking? What domains are


your hardest to sustain? Equally important is the need to have others around us who can support us in our self-care/wellness.

Likewise, although we are ultimately responsible for our own well-being, the agency offers various activities and resources to workers in promoting wellness. The Employee Assistance Program (EAP) is one such resource that any child welfare staff can utilize/access. Child welfare agencies may also offer other resources to enhance self-care/wellness. Ask your supervisor if your workplace offers additional opportunities to encourage self-care.

6. Time Management in Child Welfare

6.1 Time Management in Child Welfare

Notes:

Audio Narration:

In this topic, you’ll learn about the most efficient and effective ways to manage your time as a child welfare worker.


6.2 Overview of Time Management

Notes:

Audio Narration:

Here is a strategy you can use to manage your time efficiently and effectively.

Click each item to learn more.

Structure Your Time: The best way to structure your time is to organize it in the most effective way possible so you can focus, yet remain flexible. You can’t do everything, and you need to know that, but what you can do is identify your most important tasks and what needs to be done first.

Create Blocks of Time: Start with dividing your day into blocks of time. This helps you make the best use of your time and makes it easier to plan and organize your day in advance. If you have tasks that must be done every week, block out the same time each week to do those tasks. When you book a meeting on your calendar, don’t forget to factor in pre-meeting activities that you may need to do to be prepared. Build a contingency into your time planning since things don’t always go as you expected. You’ll be glad you added the extra time.

Focused Time: Focusing on one task at a time is much more efficient than switching from one task to another as they pop into your head. Some tasks like writing a report or proof reading a report require your full concentration. Block off the time on your calendar to ensure you have focused time. If necessary, leave your desk and find a quiet area to concentrate.

Managing Your Work Space: Keep your workspace uncluttered and put everything you can where it belongs. Clear off your desk and position the equipment and supplies you use most within reach. At the end of the day, straighten up your workspace so you have a clean start the next day.


Managing Communication: Set aside time to handle communication - emails and phone calls. Don’t get caught up in constantly checking email and returning calls. They take much longer than you realize and can leave little time for other activities. Set aside a designated time, create a time limit and stick to it. Even though it’s difficult, let your phone go to voicemail to minimize disruption. When you return from vacation, make sure you schedule the first half of the day to catch up on email and to return calls.

Click Resources to download the handout, Dealing with Technology: Email and Phone Calls for more tips on managing technology.

Structure Your Time (Slide Layer)


Create Blocks of Time (Slide Layer)

Focused Time (Slide Layer)


Managing Your Workspace (Slide Layer)

Managing Communication (Slide Layer)


6.3 Why Do We Procrastinate?

Notes:

Audio Narration:

Procrastination equals disorganization, and it can be the majority of our time management issues.

Think about your own “To Do” list. What unpleasant or uninteresting task have you failed to address this week? Did you spend time on unimportant matters simply to avoid those unpleasant tasks? It’s natural for you to want to do the tasks that are more interesting, exciting, or that you feel more comfortable doing.

Let’s look at some cures for this form of procrastination:

Can you delegate that task to someone else? Tasks that we see as unpleasant or uninteresting may not be to someone else.

Admit to yourself that the task is unpleasant, this will help you look at the task objectively, and get the job done. Procrastination usually produces guilt and internal dissatisfaction, so if you find yourself avoiding certain jobs, think about how good you will feel when you’ve address the unpleasant task.

Schedule the unpleasant task. Once you have completed it, you will feel a sense of relief.


6.4 Procrastination Scenario

Notes:

Audio Narration:

Consider this scenario. Click each item to learn more.

Background: A mother who indicates that she “hears voices” has called you several times. Each time you talk with her she yells and verbally attacks you or the Department. She is difficult to deal with, and even when you have actively helped her obtain services, she does not attend them.

Task is Unpleasant: You have put off returning her phone calls. Few people enjoy dealing with difficult people, and shrink away from personal confrontation. By putting off or delaying the phone call, the issue gets elevated because the mother calls your supervisor and/or manager. Now much more attention and time is given to the case.

You Fear Failure: We all try to avoid failure, so if it’s unlikely you can successfully complete a task you’re naturally tempted to avoid it. In most cases, the best way to handle this is to confront the task directly. If you fear that you lack the training or resources to successfully deal with the mother’s call, say so, and get the support you need. If it is due to a lack of confidence in yourself, defuse the fear through planning the return call with the mother and schedule it. Think through all the things you will have to do to successfully compete the job, and then get on with it. Mentally thinking through how to handle the call with this mother or discussing it ahead of time with your Supervisor, should help you feel more confident in completing the task.

Write down your fears about dealing with the mother on paper, then logically think through them. Are your fears real or imaginary? Be brave. Nothing that’s really worth doing is going to be easy. Challenge yourself to do something scary. The more you do this, the more you will expand your comfort zone. Let go of your inner critic. Often, we are our own harshest critics and


set unrealistic expectations. Equip yourself with the knowledge or training needed to successfully resolve calls with this mother and then get the job done. Change your thoughts about this... instead of thinking of failure, think of it as a learning opportunity.

You Don’t Know Where to Begin: Some jobs, particularly big jobs, and jobs with no defined steps, tempt us to say “I don’t know where to begin.” This may also be true for difficult tasks-like dealing with this mother. When there is a lack of clarity-this encourages procrastination. There are normally two remedies for this type of situation:

Jump in anywhere - Return the mother’s call and after you start the conversation, it is likely that you will find a productive way to deal with her concerns. Through production, you will reduce the need to procrastinate.

Break the job into parts - Specify the tasks necessary to effectively deal with the mother’s concerns. Arrange the tasks in a logical sequence-for example providing her necessary resources. Then begin with the first task in the sequence, and keep moving forward.

Background (Slide Layer)


Task is Unpleasant (Slide Layer)

You Fear Failure (Slide Layer)


Don't Know Where to Begin (Slide Layer)

6.5 Most Challenging Aspect of Child Welfare Work

Notes:

Audio Narration:

The National Association of Social Workers (NASW) did a study with child welfare workers that examined the most challenging aspects of their work. The results of that study are ranked with the least and most challenging aspects noted by percentages.


Caseload has to do not only with size, which varies from program to program, but also all non-paper work requirements of the caseload, such as traveling to and from the appointment, calling collaterals, staffing cases, finding and coordinating services etc.

So about 50% of what we do, we have some control over, with the exception of caseload size. Even then, programs strive to have caseloads as balanced as possible.

Often our stress and challenges can be tied to a lack of time management, and spending too much time on tasks that do not matter, or have little impact. Make sure to determine the difference between those things you can control and those that you cannot.

Click Resources to download the handout, Creating To-Do Lists which can be helpful in prioritizing those things we need to do.

6.6 SMART Goals

Notes:

Audio Narration:

Goals are specific, desired outcomes you identify to assist you in determining what it is you need to do and when. Without goals, it’s easy to spend time on tasks that have no clearly defined purpose. SMART goals, which are utilized in working with families on their case plan to focus them on the areas that are of most concern, can also be helpful for workers in creating specific areas of focus, need and desire.

As you create your work goals, be sure to include a personal goal or two also. Maybe you have a goal of losing weight, or obtaining a degree, or taking cooking classes. Like your work goals, your


personal goals should be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time Based, rather than vague and ambiguous. For example, wanting to lose weight is vague. Setting a weight loss goal SMART style would be something like this: “I am going to walk 3 times per week for a minimum of 30 minutes with my husband and/or neighbor.”

You will get more practice with creating SMART goals in the Case Planning and Service Delivery Block.

6.7 AIMS To-Do List

Notes:

Audio Narration:

Like goals, the items on your “To Do” list should meet specific criteria. An effective system is AIMS, which stands for action centered, incremental, measurable and scheduled.

Action centered items pinpoint specific actions that are required for you to meet your goals.

Incremental refers to breaking actions into smaller more manageable activities.

Measurable includes the criteria you’ll use to measure whether each task has been completed successfully.

Scheduled refers to realistic items, based on the time frame within which you expect to complete them. Working according to the schedule increases the probability that you’ll complete each task.

Don’t put to many tasks on your list. Be realistic. Write your goals down, put them where you will see them, and consider sharing them with someone so that they can help support you in your efforts.


6.8 Strategies for Managing Tasks

Notes:

Audio Narration:

There are county policies and procedures regarding the completion of a variety of functions within your role as a child welfare worker. The policies related to timeliness and strategies to manage these tasks include:

Preparing for your first contact;

Preparing for subsequent contacts;

Preparing and maintaining your case file;

Preparing CWS/CMS;

Preparing for your court reports;

Preparing your calendar;

Preparing Field book; and

Preparing for cultural differences in time management.

We highly recommend that you find an expert in your agency who has good time management skills and strategies that you can learn from and borrow from.

Click Resources to download the handout, Managing Filing Systems for tips on organizing your files.


6.9 Preparing Your Calendar

Notes:

Audio Narration:

Another strategy for effectively managing your time is to prepare your calendar. Everyone should have at least 3 calendars: monthly, daily and rolling six month calendar. Everyone in your office will have different systems for maintaining their own calendar. But just because it works for them does not mean it will work for you. So, make sure you develop a system that works for you.

This might include using the Franklin system, a desk top calendar, your smart phone with reminders and so on. Use whatever works best for you.

Your master calendar should include:

Court report due dates

Structured Decision Making Tools due dates

Case plan due dates

Child and Family Team Meetings (CFTs)/Team Decision Meetings (TDM’s)

Training

Unit meetings

Child/family visits

Monthly statistics


Be prepared to have a back-up plan.

6.10 Preparing Your Field Book

Notes:

Audio Narration:

Find the most organized social worker in your program and ask them what they take in the field with them. Be prepared. You never know when a child will experience a placement disruption and you will need your placement paper work. Or, when a child is in family maintenance (FM), you show up and the parent is under the influence, and the home has unsafe conditions and you need to take the child into protective custody. Have your forms for removing a child ready.

Click Resources and download the handout, Field Guide and Resource Directory Tips for more tips on preparing for the field.

6.11 Skill Practice




Information on food banks,

homeless and DV shelters

Rectangle 7

Visitation forms Rectangle 7

Case plan outlines and

Court Report Writing Guide

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Referrals Rectangle 7

Placement paperwork Rectangle 7

Protective custody paperwork Rectangle 7

Field investigation forms Rectangle 7

Notice forms Rectangle 7

SDM Safety Plans Rectangle 7





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Thank you (Slide Layer)


7. Conclusion and Posttest

7.1 Conclusion

Notes:

Audio Narration:

Child welfare work is difficult work, and comes with built in stressors. However, with the development of good time management skills, workers can learn to develop a system that works for them in an effort to manage and/or reduce some of these job stressors.

This course has covered basic information on child welfare stressors and tools for self-care, resilience, and time management. You learned about the role that time management plays in how child welfare workers experience stressors on the job. You also learned about time management strategies you can use such as structuring your time, prioritizing your week, managing your work space and addressing procrastination - all of which can help you to reduce stress. You also learned to consider culture and how it can influence your perspective regarding stress and how we manage time.


7.2 Posttest

Notes:

Audio Narration:

Now, it’s time to see what you learned in this online module. You will need to score 80% or higher on the Posttest to receive credit for this course.

Click NEXT to begin the Posttest.

7.3 Draw from Question Bank 1

Draw all questions randomly from Question Bank 1

7.4 Results

(Results Slide, 0 points, 1 attempt permitted)


Results for

7.3 Draw from Question Bank 1

Result slide properties

Passing Score 80%

Notes:


Success (Slide Layer)

Failure (Slide Layer)


7.5 References

Notes:

Audio Narration:

Here are the references we used to develop this course.

Please click Resources to download the References handout and to download the Resources handout to use in your practice.


7.6 Congratulations

Notes:

Audio Narration:

Congratulations! You’ve completed the eLearning course, Time and Stress Management.

Click Exit to exit the course.

Documents

Time and Stress Management 1. Introduction · Published by Articulate® Storyline Time and Stress Management 1. Introduction 1.1 California Common Core 3.0 Notes: