One of the hazards of a long term home program is therapist burnout.
Two problems exist:
1. The therapist who burns out and leaves.
2. The therapist who burns out and doesn't leave. No joke intended but I know it sounds funny.
Let's deal with the first kind.
What can we do to prevent burnout?
- Make sure your team takes vacations from your program.
- Don't give them too many hours with your child.
- Figure out a way to help them not have to drive too far. Maybe you take your child to them once a week or something.
- BE UPBEAT. Therapist toast faster around negativity.
- Train them. Nothing is more discouraging on a job than not being trained properly. And remember, even a more experienced therapist still needs training with YOUR child. Otherwise, they'd be a consultant by now.
- Pay them enough. They have to pay housing, car, travel, food...unless they are really young, they have adult responsibilities. They cannot live even barely well on 10 dollars an hour. And they won't have to. Once experienced, they can make a reasonable wage.
Here is the hard part. Some people just get bored. They like change. So you may lose them no matter what you do. You must always be prepared with either more team members than you need or some one waiting in the wings.
Number 2 is harder.
This is the loyal, good therapist who will stay with you but is very very burnt toast on actually doing programs with your child.
I definitely know therapists to whom this never happens but, some times it does.
- Try to find their niche...the area they are good at and enjoy and are responsble for with your child.
- Cut their hours if you can agree together it is best. This keeps their valuable talent with the team, but maybe will help ease whatever has caused them to burn out.
- Talk to your therapist. But don't be rough on them. This is a partnership and if they are staying with you, they want to work it out. They may not know how to bring up the problem.
- Be open to any changes that might help them.
- Make sure you have raised their pay to equal their value to your team.
You may both have to make a painful decision together that parting is best. But I always urge to find another solution for the child's sake. This is probably a person the child loves. They've been together for a long time. If you can even work out a once a week time for them together, do it. You can find value in that.
Burn out is something you will have to face in long term home programs. Most important is to make sure partings don't hurt the child, as much as is possible.
My heart is with you,
Katherine Lee