Reducing the “cost of caring” in animal-care professionals: Social work contribution in a pilot education program to address burnout and compassion fatigue

ABSTRACT

Professionals who choose to work in animal-care-related fields often have deep connections to animals, their well-being, and a strong commitment to service. The work is sometimes profoundly challenging which may lead them to experience burnout or compassion fatigue. While self-care practices are common preventative measures to enhance psychological wellbeing, more emphasis is now on using concrete, discrete skills to develop resilience. The Caring for the Carers course was developed to provide knowledge, skills, and tools to animal-care professionals to address stress, burnout, and compassion fatigue effectively. The course also provided participants an experiential opportunity to learn and understand how to utilize two tools, namely low-impact debriefing and peer supervision, to help address the effects of burnout and compassion fatigue. The objective of this article is to provide the rationale, structure, and reflection from the course. Twenty staff participated in both parts of the course and 14 completed evaluation forms. Overall, over 70% of the participants reported to have found the course content useful, enhancing their personal and professional development to improve their psychological wellbeing. The study adds constructive evidence for instilling reflective practice approaches in communication skills and facilitated support group discussions to mitigate burnout and compassion fatigue.

KEYWORDS:

• Low-impact debriefing
• peer supervision
• compassion fatigue
• burnout
• resilience

Declaration of interest statement

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.