Welcome to Day 3 of National Safeguarding Adults Week.  Today's theme will focus on the impact trauma may have on people in a caring role.

Anyone who supports others or engages empathetically with people that may have experienced trauma as part of their day-to-day role can experience vicarious trauma as a result.

The BMA explains that vicarious trauma can involve being preoccupied with thoughts about those you support outside of work, feeling angry or sad about the situation of people you support, struggling to maintain professional boundaries or trying to avoid listening to people’s experience of trauma.

Today's aim is to raise awareness of vicarious trauma and provide tools and effective strategies that enable staff, carers and volunteers to promote their own wellbeing when safeguarding others.

You can visit the Ann Craft Trust website for more information and resources.

"The expectation that we can be immersed in suffering a loss on a daily basis and not be touched by it is about as unrealistic as expecting to be able to walk through water without getting wet" 
Dr Naomi Rachel Remen  

The impact of working from home can result in working excessive hours, increased stress levels and being unable to switch off from work. The Ann Craft Trust have shared a blog and useful information about wellbeing and mental health.   Find out more about how to safeguard your wellbeing while working and spending long periods of time at home.

You can read a blog written by Emma Coleman, Nottingham City Safeguarding Adults Board about how important it is to safeguard your own wellbeing at work.  Prioritising your physical and mental wellbeing is more important then ever.  Read Emma's blog here

'You can’t pour from an empty cup'

You may have heard the phrase ‘you can’t pour from an empty cup’, meaning that if you don’t look after your own wellbeing, you won’t have the energy, headspace or motivation to care for others.

Wellbeing is important – you are important!  

Vicarious trauma is a process of change resulting from empathetic engagement with trauma survivors.

Anyone who engages empathetically with survivors of traumatic incidents, torture, and material relating to their trauma, is potentially affected, including doctors and other health professionals.  

If you are currently or have recently been working with survivors of traumatic incidents or torture survivors, you should be aware of the following signs:

• experiencing lingering feelings of anger, rage and sadness about patient's victimisation
• becoming overly involved emotionally with the patient
• experiencing bystander guilt, shame, feelings of self-doubt
• being preoccupied with thoughts of patients outside of the work situation
• over identification with the patient (having horror and rescue fantasies)
• loss of hope, pessimism, cynicism
• distancing, numbing, detachment, cutting patients off, staying busy. Avoiding listening to client's story of traumatic experiences
• difficulty in maintaining professional boundaries with the client, such as overextending self (trying to do more than is in the role to help the patient).

Click here to read more from the British Medical Association about common signs of vicarious trauma and strategies for reducing risk.  

This guide from Mind looks at what vicarious trauma is and why it affects journalists – and details some of its signs and symptoms. The guide also references trauma and its individual impacts, and offers practical suggestions for individuals and newsroom leaders on how to prepare for exposure to disturbing material.

It will also signpost to additional resources where further support may be needed.

The guide and insights are drawn from the experience of the journalism industry, and contributions from Mind, the mental health charity. It also includes good practice tips from practitioners in the field of journalism, experts in trauma reporting and clinicians.  

Trauma informed approach and practice means recognising how common traumatic stress is, the potential impacts of trauma and taking action to avoid people becoming ‘retraumatised’ or unnecessarily stressed by interacting with you or your service.

During this session we will look at how trauma may present in people we are trying to support or work alongside and how to recognise these signs and to realise that all behaviour is communication.

Trauma Informed Practice may also mean reviewing what we do, including possibly making changes to how we deliver and make services accessible to those who struggle to trust professionals.

This session will take place on Thursday 23rd November 2023 starting at 12noon aiming to finish by 1pm.  

Click here to join the session

This briefing published by the Local Government Association provides an update of a previous advice note 'Carers and Safeguarding Adults' produced in 2011 for frontline workers and brings it in line with the Care Act 2014.

The briefing is intended to be used as a practical tool and does not seek to amend or replace existing statutory guidance that may be in place. The briefing will support the improvement in practice regarding safeguarding adults as well as safeguarding their carers.  

The Well Communities CiC Carers Support is a service set up to offer help, connection and guidance to carers of addicts and alcoholics. 

Offering 1-to-1 sessions with an addiction support worker and group support from a community of people with lived experience, it is a safe, confidential and non-judgemental space to tell your story, ask questions, speak openly about what you are going through and talk freely about the addict in your care. With weekly facilitated online meetings
 and in-person groups across Cumbria, as well as a moderated group-chat platform and referrals to additional services and pathways, learn more about addiction and all that comes with it as well as gaining a better understanding of boundary setting, self-care, the pitfalls of enabling, and guidance on how to play a more effective role with emphasis on lessening the stress and helplessness of the carers and family as a whole.

For referrals on behalf of self or others, email full name, contact details, area and brief description of the situation to families@thewell2.co.uk