I Help Volunteers to Adopt Resilience Habits That Will Allow Them to Help Others As Well As Themselves

Here are five things I know about volunteers:

1. They face unique challenges for their well-being due to the emotionally demanding nature of their work. When they burn out, it has specific characteristics not found in other fields.

2. Working with people in crisis can disrupt the nervous systems of volunteers, leading to stress, exhaustion, guilt, anxiety, and anger.

3. Women volunteers often face additional challenges due to gender socialization and expectations, such as difficulty setting boundaries and balancing caring for others and doing self-care. This can also be true for many men who choose to volunteer.

4. Many volunteers are reluctant to adopt self-care and boundary-setting strategies because they feel the focus should be on the people they help, who are suffering more.

5. Many volunteers report, even years after leaving their volunteering roles, how traumatic and damaging the experience was, affecting their private lives and mental and physical health.

My mission is to improve volunteers’ well-being, benefiting them, the people they serve, and the organizations they volunteer with.

I help volunteers develop resilience and stress management skills to perform at their best. This includes creating resilience routines with daily practices for stress reduction, self-care, and boundary-setting.