Doin' my 30: Building Resilience for Body & Soul

Abstract

The current project, Doin’ my 30: Building Resilience for Body & Soul, comes from the idea that exercising 30 minutes a day improves physical health and reduces tension and anxiety, among other mental health issues. Doin’ my 30 was designed for child welfare workers (CWWs), many of whom experience many competing priorities during their day and have little time for self-care. By incorporating mindfulness techniques, Doin’ my 30 is designed to provide CWWs with quick tools to rely on during times of high stress and begin building a foundation toward resilience. Historically, child welfare services have experienced a high rate of burnout and attrition due to the nature of their work and the vicarious trauma associated with working with families in crisis (Barford & Whelton, 2010; Lizano & Mor Barak, 2012). Current data suggests that approximately 30% of CWWs leave their employment within 2 years (Middleton & Potter, 2015; Smith & Clark, 2011; Wilke et al., 2019) and due to the specialized nature of the work, it is not possible to recruit and train staff members fast enough to keep up with high turnover in the field. In contrast, resilient workers tend to have a strong commitment to their work and helping their clients, further benefiting the organizations where they work (Russ et al., 2020). Job satisfaction and competence were found to be primary predictors of organizational commitment (Auerbach et al., 2010) and engagement (Brimhall et al., 2014; Lee et al., 2011). When employees feel burned out, their job satisfaction and performance decreases and therefore, they are prone to choose to leave their organization and often the field. A scoping review (Pineda, 2022) conducted as part of this project that assessed 13 articles published from 2010 to 2022 discovered that employees perceive their organization in either a positive or negative light depending on its climate and culture. The results allowed for a more in-depth look at how work environments affect employees’ sense of belonging and worth and the motivation to continue doing their work. Employees’ strengths, areas of development, and perceptions of their work and organization can play a pivotal role in how they see themselves not only belonging to but wanting to be a part of their organization.