Throughout October FD Consultants will be looking at the impact COVID-19 has had on all of us in one way or another. We’ll be focussing on our new webinar service entitled “Living in uncertain times”, sharing tips on how we can all look after ourselves, exploring the positives of living with Coronavirus, and the impact it may have on our future. As staff return to the workplace or continue to work from home it is important that management consider the wellbeing of their teams and implement the following:
If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s the importance of creativity, to be more patient, and to stay connected with family and friends. Being flexible helps us to stay resilient during difficult times, as does appreciating others more, and offering acts of kindness. Whilst this is a frightening and stressful time, it’s also an opportunity to grow. At FD Consultants we often experience, first-hand, Post-Traumatic Growth (Joseph, 2011), where individuals who survive trauma become stronger, more resilient and turn the negative experience into something positive to help others heal in the future. FD Consultant’s team of accredited specialists will offer ongoing support to help manage stress, prevent burnout and provide specialist trauma care where required, enabling your staff with the tools to cope, and recover more quickly. If you want to find out more request one of FD Consultants webinars to support your staff by emailing us at [email protected] Date: Oct 2020 Author: Maddie Nixon (Associate for FD Consultants)
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Throughout October FD Consultants will be looking at the impact COVID-19 has had on all of us in one way or another. We’ll be focussing on our new webinar service entitled “Living in uncertain times”, sharing tips on how we can all look after ourselves, exploring the positives of living with Coronavirus, and the impact it may have on our future. In last week’s blog we talked about challenges people were facing, this week we’re going to look at resources we can all implement to reduce our stress and anxiety levels.
FD Consultant’s team of accredited specialists will offer ongoing support to help manage stress, prevent burnout and provide specialist trauma care where required, enabling your staff with the tools to cope, and recover more quickly. If you want to find out more request one of FD Consultants webinars to support your staff by emailing us at [email protected] Date: Oct 2020 Author: Maddie Nixon (Associate for FD Consultants)
Over the past six months we’ve all faced new challenges as a result of lockdown, including:
Thinking about the challenges you’ve faced, or are continuing to face, and writing them down is a great way to logically look at your situation and address what is worrying you. What can you do, practically, to overcome, or reduce, these challenges? In next week's blog we will look at helpful routines you can put in place to combat challenges, concerns and worries. FD Consultant’s team of accredited specialists will offer ongoing support to help manage stress, prevent burnout and provide specialist trauma care where required, enabling your staff with the tools to cope, and recover more quickly. If you want to find out more request one of FD Consultants webinars to support your staff by emailing us at [email protected] Date: Oct 2020 Author: Maddie Nixon (Associate for FD Consultants) Throughout October FD Consultants will be looking at the impact COVID-19 has had on all of us in one way or another. We’ll be focussing on our new webinar service entitled “Living in uncertain times”, sharing tips on how we can all look after ourselves, exploring the positives of living with Coronavirus, and the impact it may have on our future. Coronavirus continues to spread across the world, with 31,664,104 confirmed cases worldwide and 972,221reported deaths (WHO, 24/09/2020), and in many countries the cases continue to surge, while others who believed they had the infections under control are now seeing another rise in cases. This is a learning experience for us all, but no one, including world leaders, have ever experienced anything on this scale for over 100 years, since the 1918 flu pandemic known as ‘Spanish flu’, and so we are living in unchartered territory. Scientists, drug makers and governments around the world are moving with unprecedented haste to develop a vaccine. The aim is to develop one by the end of the year, or early next year, which if successful would be a scientific feat as no vaccine has ever been developed so quickly (which goes to show what can be achieved when we work together). The collaborative working on these vaccines may hopefully mean that we will have more vaccines emerging that can deal with different aspects of the disease. While we wait for the vaccines we have to take individual responsibility for ourselves and to protect each other, such as hand washing, wearing masks and social distancing. Governments across the world have been forced to limit public movement and close businesses and venues in a bid to slow the spread of the virus. This has had a devastating impact on the global economy. Reviewing how COVID-19 has impacted the world it is understandable that it has been difficult for all of us living in these uncertain times to adapt quickly to the challenges we are facing. As human beings we do not cope well with uncertainty, it leaves us feeling as though we have no control over our lives, which means we may feel more stressed, anxious, depressed and powerless. Our minds start to search for answers playing out the ‘what-if’ scenarios, worrying about what might happen, trying to think through every possibility, and desperately trying to find solutions to take back control. However, this doesn’t work, we are not able to predict the future and so uncertainty is inevitable. What happens instead is that we end up feeling overwhelmed, anxious and exhausted. If you recognise these feelings, it is important to remember you are not alone, many of us have experienced these feelings at some point during this time and there are steps we can take to learn to cope with the uncertainty. FLARE is a useful model to refer to when living in uncertain times. FLARE is an acronym that offers a step-by-step approach to managing uncertainty (DR Inna Khazan).
Offer kindness and compassion to yourself and others in these difficult times. Uncertainty is difficult for all human beings. There is nothing you can do to eliminate the uncertainty. Offering yourself and others kindness and compassion will help ease the discomfort of uncertainty. FD Consultant’s team of accredited specialists will offer ongoing support to help manage stress, prevent burnout and provide specialist trauma care where required, enabling your staff with the tools to cope, and recover more quickly. If you want to find out more request one of FD Consultants webinars to support your staff by emailing us at [email protected] Date: Oct 2020 Author: Maddie Nixon (Associate for FD Consultants) Throughout July FD Consultants want to highlight the diverse expertise and professionalism amongst its associates. Maddie Nixon is a BACP accredited psychotherapist and supervisor, trainer and an accredited Eye Movement Desensitisation Reprocessing (EMDR) practitioner. She has expertise in trauma care and critical incident response and has a particular interest in pre-trial therapy. Maddie has recently completed her MSc in Therapeutic Practice for Psychological Trauma. Her dissertation was ‘A qualitative exploration of therapists’ experience of working therapeutically pre-trial within the Crown Prosecution Guidelines with adult clients who have reported sexual violence’. Following this Maddie and Peter Jenkins have published an article ‘Examining the Evidence of Pre-Trial Therapy’ in the Healthcare Counselling and Psychotherapy Journal, January 2020 https://tinyurl.com/r9gt66h. Below Maddie writes about her recent work, and her experience as an associate for FD Consultants. Very early in my career as a therapist, when I was studying for my Diploma in Humanistic Integrative Counselling I took a placement in an agency that worked with adults who had been abused as children. I developed an interest in helping people who had suffered traumatic experiences and it was here that I became aware of pre-trial therapy (PTT). PTT is the term that applies to working therapeutically with a client before they appear as a witness/defendant in a criminal trial. PTT is different to generic counselling as it requires specialist training and a knowledge of the criminal justice system. In 2001 the Home Office, the Department of Health and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) joined together to produce a practical guide https://tinyurl.com/y782c4dl, primarily aimed to assist therapists when providing therapeutic interventions to vulnerable or intimidated witnesses in England and Wales (victims of sexual violence are defined as vulnerable by the courts) as they recognised the need for these witnesses to receive PTT. Having an awareness of the CPS guidelines is important for therapists whether they are in private practice or work within an organisation. It would also be of benefit to other professionals that work within organisations that may have to investigate allegations of sexual violence. FD Consultants specialise in trauma care and critical incident response. Fiona Dunkley, the founder of FD Consultants conducted research on critical incidents within the humanitarian sector. She reviewed 188 critical incidents concerning 89 organisations between 2014 and 2017 (Dunkley, 2018). The research concluded that sexual violent crime towards aid workers had increased by 25% over a period of two years. Research has indicated that 60% of survivors of rape and sexual assault develop PTSD and as a therapist working with a client presenting with the symptoms of PTSD the main aim would be to alleviate their symptoms. FD Consultants are trained in the recommended (WHO, APA and NICE) treatments of trauma and PTSD which are Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) and Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (TF-CBT). However, if you were to use EMDR or TF-CBT, according to the CPS guidelines, these forms of therapy may be seen as ‘recounting or re-enacting’ memories and the criminal case could fail as a result. Therefore, at FD Consultants we are aware of these sensitive dilemmas, and depending on what the client requests, may focus on normalisation, stabilisation and psycho-education during pre-trial therapy. Herman (2003) explained how criminal proceedings could distress the most robust person, and for those who may be experiencing symptoms of PTSD, the justice system could be described as a ‘re-victimisation’. As happened in the case of Frances Andrade, a witness in the criminal trial over indecent assault against her former music teacher, Frances was wrongly informed that she could not receive therapy prior to the court proceedings. Frances described the cross-examination process as feeling like she was being ‘raped all over again’ and took a fatal overdose a few days after giving evidence (Barrett, 2013). All the therapists interviewed in my research believed that pre-trial therapy was beneficial in some way. Janet stated “the important thing with counselling is talking about feelings and building up confidence”. James had actually used EMDR with his client before the client reported the incident, however this was not challenged in court (as has been the case in other court hearings) “I was asked about EMDR in court and interestingly I had been expecting them to try and undermine EMDR as a technique but they didn’t”. The debilitating symptoms associated with PTSD bring up the dilemma as to whether it is morally acceptable to withhold treatment that may alleviate these extremely distressing symptoms. In fact the revised NICE (2018) guidelines state “do not delay or withhold treatment for PTSD solely because of court proceedings”. It can also be argued as to how reliable a witness would be when suffering from the very debilitating psychological impact of PTSD. Neuroscience has shown that in brain scans of people experiencing flashbacks, the Broca area of the brain, responsible for speech, goes offline leaving the person unable to put their thoughts and feelings into words (van der Kolk, 2014). Therefore, it could be argued, that encouraging the witness to have treatment prior to the trial would be beneficial to the criminal proceedings. Given the recent research and developments in therapy, it may be an opportune time for a review and update of the current CPS guidelines into the provision of therapy for vulnerable or intimidated adults prior to a criminal trial. There has been concern of a potential rise in domestic abuse during the COVID-19 crises with agencies such as Refuge reporting a 25% increase in calls since lockdown began. These risks are reported to be affecting society worldwide. For professionals and organisations supporting adults who have experienced abuse, it is important to be mindful of PTT in case the victim decides to pursue a criminal case either now or in the future. At FD Consultants we support staff impacted by sexual violence. Over the last year (2019) 25% of the incidents FD Consultants managed were sexual violence cases. If you want to find out more about our services please email [email protected] or visit our website at www.FDconsultants.net If you want to find out more about Maddie’s work on PTT please email [email protected] or visit her website at www.maddienixon.co.uk. She is planning to facilitate further training on PTT in the near future, which can now be offered online. For organisations looking for employee psychological support, FD Consultants are the trauma specialists and well-being service who will best deliver a reliable, quick, and bespoke support system in the workplace. FD Consultant’s team of accredited specialists will offer ongoing support to help manage stress, prevent burnout and provide specialist trauma care where required, enabling your staff with the tools to cope, and recover more quickly. |
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