Resource collection on strength, wisdom and wellness for advocates

The bundle, Smiles for the Soul: The Advocate’s Scrapbook of Strength, Wisdom & Wellness (2019) features resources and personal stories from advocates and survivors.

The bundle highlights eight key resources freely available online. These explore a range of topics including:

• motivation for being an advocate
• vicarious trauma
• collective and historical trauma
• compassion fatigue
• self care

Many of the articles offer further resources and links to explore topics in more depth. Many of the resources acknowledge the impact of working in domestic/family and sexual violence, along with increased complexity and the impact of institutionalised racism, discrimination, intolerance and silencing.

For related discussion, see an article from Canadian academic and advocate Nakita Valerio on her tweet "Shouting 'self-care' at people who actually need community care is how we fail people" (2019).

For a range of Aotearoa New Zealand based resources to support wellbeing, see the collection put together by the Mental Health Foundation for Mental Health Awareness Week 2019.

Vicki Reynolds has written these articles and more:

Reynolds, V. (2019). The Zone of Fabulousness: Resisting vicarious trauma with connection, collective care and justice-doing in ways that centre the people we work alongside. Context. August 2019, Association for Family and Systemic Therapy, UK, 36-39.

Reynolds, V. (2011). Resisting burnout with justice-doing. The International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work. (4) 27-45.

Have other resources to suggest on wellbeing, strength and resilience that could be useful for people working to address abuse and related issues? Email us.