Surviving the Holidays as a Social Worker

Hey fellow social worker-

I cannot believe we are coming upon the holiday season so soon! A few weeks ago it was 70 degrees and sunny outside…but wait for a change in weather if you lived in Michigan!  Those of us in Michigan have been slowly shoveling ourselves out from under a few feet of snow that was a real surprise in the middle of November. In the area where I live, we will get snow but often not this much.  This storm has allowed me to slow down a bit and pause on how I want to share the rest of the year with you. 

But why….

I work with other social workers as part of my private practice work.  Like our clients, the holiday can be hard trying to get everything done and engage in self care.  Holidays often offer the opportunity to take time off since offices are closed or clients are not available due to their own family obligations.  The holidays are also a time to slow down and become more aware of how we work.  This could mean planning a vacation, taking time off throughout the year or even planning to be away from the office for our own self-care.  As social workers, we need to make sure we are taking care of ourselves to support our clients in the best way and one way is by using our benefits and taking time off.  We need to take time off for a number of reasons and I will touch upon this in this blog post.   For our own emotional and physical health, we cannot work constantly without breaks to attend to all the needs of our clients.  It can lead to physical health issues, burnout, resentment, and trauma.  

How can we do this?

First:

First, we need to talk the time off to be with our own friends and loved ones. These relationships are the connections that we need to keep us healthy and engaged our work.  They will often be there when a job is not or when a job has decided to let us go, eliminate or downsize our position or when we decided to leave it.  Our friends and family provide us with additional support and encouragement to make changes, to weather storms and to know us in a personal way.  These deep connections can be like fuel but we also need to put in the work in there relationships in order to keep them healthy and growing.

Second:

Second, we need to take time off in order to stop supporting the hustle culture.  As social workers, we are also swimming in the waters of working harder, smarter, faster, and having a side hustle to maintain our standard of lives.  And we are called to advocate for change and to push back against oppression and marginalization which includes the way capitalism exploits others.  This exploration can look like working more, working longer and working harder without a break.   When we participate in the system that calls for more work, working long hours, or being the last one in the office we are supporting the marginalization and oppression of others.  We are setting the bar high, modeling expectations and really burning ourselves out.  Capitalism will never be satisfied and will never change when we continue to support it and encourage it to flourish. 

Third:

Third and most importantly, we are putting ourselves at risk for vicarious and secondary trauma.  When we pick up extra hours, meet with that extra client, or take more on-call we are exposing ourselves to greater amounts of trauma.  As social workers, we work on a daily basis with people in some very traumatic, difficult and painful experiences.  This pain and trauma is absorbed into our systems even though we aren’t conscious it is happening or think we have the best self-care routine. This secondary or vicarious trauma leads to physical and mental health issues, becoming resentful of our clients and hating the profession in general.  

My wish for you:

As social workers, we are called to look at the systems impacting our clients and how those systems contribute to inequality, oppression and marginalization.  We are also obligated to understand how our profession contributes to these systems and one way this happens is through engaging in our work.  My wish for you is to slow down and take care of one of our best resources in the community…you!  We need to be mindful of how much we are working, how much overtime or on-call work we do and how late we stay in the office.  Yes, our profession is historically underpaid but there are ways to address this outside of working more hours, leaving our PTO/holiday time on the table and putting our needs in the backseat. 

So…this holiday, take all your PTO and time off, use your sick time for a mental health day and fight capitalism through rest.