We often talk about burnout, compassion fatigue and the need for resiliency in our workforce. We are beginning to reckon with the reality that it is our systems that are failing, not our workers. What will it take to create sustainable work in helping professions, for volunteers and staff?

Stacy Ashton, Executive Director, Crisis Intervention & Suicide Prevention Centre of BC will present a session along with other panelists on this important topic at the Volunteer BC & BCACG Conference, October 13 & 14, 2022 in Richmond, BC.

The conference is back in-person and will help future-proof your organization, recover and rebuild together.

We spoke to Stacy about her session: Reckoning: Towards Sustainable Healthy Work in the Crisis, Health & NonProfit Sectors and what she hopes to achieve in supporting nonprofits. 

The topic of self-care & burnout has been around for decades – what is the focus of your session at the Volunteer BC & BCACG Conference?

We talk a lot about the resiliency needed to work in a helping profession, but resiliency as an individual doesn’t make an impossible job possible. We are seeing a large-scale abandonment of work in emergency, health, and social services not because people are tired of the work, but because people are tired of working under conditions where they are prevented from helping people. This reckoning has been a long time coming: helping professionals are chronically underfunded and overworked. People are opting out of systems that actively harm them.

What has your organization done to help individuals/groups during this challenging time? 

As a volunteer-based crisis line, we can only keep people if they enjoy their work. Over COVID, our calls increased by 30%, meaning that our volunteers hear lines ringing and can’t answer. That’s incredibly stressful. Our volunteers and staff have all experienced the global trauma of COVID, and the loss of security that came with it. We’ve organized free counseling support for staff and volunteers, and we know about 30% of our staff take advantage of that service. We’ve also been talking openly about the fact that we can’t answer all our calls, but we can help those whose calls we can answer, while we proactively advocate for the resources we need to meet demand.

What tips/resources do you have for organizations to help them cope during this challenging time?

Talk openly about the challenge we are collectively facing. When it’s our job to help others, and we don’t have the time or resources to help everyone, we wonder if we are actually making things worse by being part of a system that can’t meet demand. We can feel ashamed of ourselves, instead of outraged that the resources needed aren’t available. We can start fighting within our organizations and between our organizations, as we get blocked by waitlists and staffing shortages. Turning our outrage inward isn’t going to help. Reckoning means getting involved in systems change: the decisions and structures that allow poverty, homelessness, and lack of mental health support to exist in the first place.

Do you have some examples of what some groups have done to create sustainable healthy workplaces?

We have started an internal task force to find out what a sustainable career as a helping professional looks like from the perspective of our volunteers and staff. We want to know how people plan to help their life’s work, and how employers can create workplaces that align values and workloads so that helping professionals can stay at their best.

We’ve also heard that organizations like BC Ambulance are creating hubs of paramedics who see their peers going on stress leave and want to support each other to stay on the job. We are seeing job action as well, which gives employers the opportunity to find out what is needed to create healthy, sustainable working conditions. 

What do you hope conference attendees will take away from your session?

A new way of thinking about what needs to happen to create sustainable, healthy careers in the helping sectors. We have focused a lot on how our staff and volunteers need to change – how to be mindful, resilient, and take care of themselves. As staff and volunteers are succeeding at setting boundaries, we as employers need to re-organize the work, so we stop being reliant on our staff and volunteers working until they drop.

You can learn more about Stacy’s panel and other sessions here.

Get your tickets to the Volunteer BC & BCACG CONFERENCE – October 13 & 14, 2022 in Richmond, BC. Event for nonprofits, charities & volunteers – everyone welcome!

Lorelynn Hart is the Program Director at Volunteer BC, an organization working to raise the profile of volunteering, encourage investment in volunteer engagement and link the network of volunteer centres. Volunteer BC is the voice of volunteerism with the goal of promoting the value of volunteerism and building healthy BC Communities.