Cindy Stutheit Resources

Preventing Burn Out for Your Front-line Staff

Cindy Stutheit, Program Director, Champa House, Denver Rescue Mission
1994 IUGM Annual Convention Seminar, Denver CO

Introduction

The work of rescue can be difficult and personally draining. Many missions find themselves running at high stress levels with situations of limited funding, staffing, facilities and more. As a result many missions suffer a fast turnover rate of their front- line employees and never seem to fully stabilize. As administrators and program directors, this can lead to an endless cycle of interviewing, hiring and training. This work shop will address these specific problems and is designed to help supervisors to support and keep their front-line staff within the limitations of the ministry.

I. Why People Bum-Out

• lack of communication
• frustration
• emotionally draining
• too much responsibility
• "losing people, souls & lives" versus "losing an account"
• physically taxing
• poor boundaries and codependency
• tyranny of the urgent--daily rut of routine and poor crisis management
• poor training
• heavy workload
• Inexperience and unrealistic expectations
• no personal space
• 24 hour job for live-in staff
  

Most people burn-out or resign somewhere between 6 to 18 months. Very often those who do last are either like "walking dead" or, apart from the mission, they "have no life". The mission is their life.

II. The Job

A. Training

1. Training helps people to feel adequate to the task and in control. At least one person on your staff should have a four year counseling (or equivalent) degree, or even their masters degree. It not, it is advisable to hire a consultant for evaluations of staff meetings and staff training, to observe that these things are being conducted efficiently.
   
   
2. It is of utmost importance that the mission have job descriptions and an employee handbook. This provides direction for the staff. both as individuals and as a team. Include familiarization with these documents in their training.

B. Work Load

Train staff ahead of time. New staff should not be so immediately immersed that they do not even know what questions to ask. Give them supervised, hands-on training first, not solo training. (This relates to all shifts, even night workers.) That being done, be on-call for the first couple of shifts to observe, provide trouble shooting, etc.

C. Good communication of expectations and limits

1. In determining healthy boundaries in a particular instance, ask yourself the following questions: