10 Self-Care Tips for Early Intervention Professionals

December 6, 2022

Early intervention is not an easy job. Busy schedules and documentation duties, conflict with team members, worries about how to provide the best support to under-resourced families—there’s so much that can contribute to your daily stress.

In her early intervention guidebook Pause and Reflect, Dana Childress offers some sound advice to dedicated professionals who may not always think to take time for themselves in the midst of their hectic work lives. Excerpted and adapted from the book, Childress’s tips will help EI professionals avoid burnout and stay optimistic and refreshed in the year ahead.

Tips

1. Take 20 minutes for yourself every day.
Find at least 20 minutes each day to do something for yourself, to downshift or re-center. What these 20 minutes look like will be completely up to you and may differ day to day. Use this time to exercise, read a book, listen to music or a podcast, write in your journal, walk or play with your dog, relax in your hammock, meditate, take a bath, snuggle with your kids, work on a puzzle, drink a cup of tea, knit, call a friend, or simply do nothing at all. Figure out what recharges your soul and make time for it every day.

2. Process your work experiences with colleagues.
Sometimes, the best medicine for work stress is to talk with someone who understands. Share how you feel and process your experiences with a trusted colleague or supervisor. Vent if you need to (because we all do at times) but do so respectfully. Support others who are stressed, which can make you feel better too. Just remember to avoid sharing your stressors with the families you work with. They will often care deeply about you and may even ask how you are. Be mindful of professional boundaries, sharing only as much as necessary. Never talk about personal stressors with families and do not vent to them—they deserve your best face forward.

3. Be mindful of your attitude and how you think.
When you’re stressed, it can be easy to let it eat away at your attitude, sometimes without you even realizing it. If you’re burned out, negative about families, or exasperated about work responsibilities, you can spread that to your colleagues. Instead, catch yourself, reflect, take a break when you need it, and decide to be a source of positive energy in your office. If you find yourself frustrated about a family situation, check in with yourself about what you are thinking. Reframe negative thoughts in a more positive light.

4. Stay organized.
The more organized you are, the more likely that you’ll feel better about your workload and less stressed about managing it. Just don’t overthink it. If you end up worrying for an hour about how to properly color-code that Excel spreadsheet, then you might want to back away from your computer and take a nice long brain break.

5. Say “no.”
This is a hard one. Many of us in EI are people pleasers and helpers. We say yes when we can help someone else, forgetting to say no when it does not serve our own self-care. There will be times when you cannot say no to a job responsibility, but before you agree to take on another task, at least pause. It’s almost always okay to ask for some time to think about your response.

6. Set boundaries and leave it at work.
Leaving work at work can be hard in this profession. If you find yourself thinking about families a lot when you are not at work or even taking their calls outside of work hours, it is definitely time for a self-check. Develop a transition routine between home and work.

7. Ask for help when you need it.
There is no weakness in asking for help. If you are feeling stressed, schedule time to talk with your supervisor. Before that meeting, consider how you’re feeling and what words best reflect your experience, and try to come up with an idea or two for improving your situation.

8. Take a day off.
If a whole day seems impossible, take an afternoon off. If you have leave time through your employer, use it.

9. Take a vacation.
Pick the week far in advance so you can plan for how you will make up visits and manage your responsibilities. Prepare for your vacation so you can leave work behind and focus on relaxation.

10. Find your balance.
Think about your life over the course of one week and visualize where your energy goes. If you find that you are out of balance, jot down some ideas for how to regain your balance and set a goal for yourself.

Use these tips from a voice of experience to guide your self-care efforts this year—and for a one-of-a-kind guide that will help you reflect on and strengthen your daily work in early intervention, get the book behind today’s blog post!

Pause and Reflect

Your Guide to a Deeper Understanding of Early Intervention Practice
By Dana C. Childress, Ph.D.
“A terrific, practical book…The workbook arrangement, examples, and framework of pausing and reflecting on how things are going on specific EI visits can lead to better outcomes for the family and child and improve the competence of even the most seasoned provider.” —Lynda Cook Pletcher, M.Ed., Retired Technical Assistance Specialist, Early Childhood Technical Assistance Center, Chapel Hill, NC

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