Caretaker Interview

Caretaker Interview

Robin Outlaw

September 19, 2016

Sandra Alger

Caretaker Interview

        The interview was with Kenyatta Dowdy, LMSW, social worker in the neonatal intensive care unit at Richland Memorial Hospital. Ms. Dowdy’s job is to provide services to pregnant women, babies, and their families. Ms. Dowdy talked about her job, the expectations, and how at times her caseload can be overwhelming. Ms. Dowdy discussed a time in her life when she experienced burnout due to a stressful case. As she recalled at that time, she also realized that she was experiencing a difficult time in her personal life as well. A supervisor came to her and discussed the case and situation with her, which helped her to realize that she was beginning to feel overworked. Social workers sometimes have to manage a heavy caseload, which Ms. Dowdy says can contribute to becoming burned out.

Burnout Versus Compassion Fatigue

        As a social worker Kenyatta Dowdy works with families experiencing a crisis in their child’s life. Many of the families are faced with their child having serious health issues, or dying. Some of these families are also dealing with other issues that involve the social worker, such as drug abuse, child custody, and homelessness. When a human service worker becomes involved in crisis cases they can experience becoming burned out or compassion fatigue.

        Burnout is when a worker has become exhausted both physically and emotionally from poor work environments. Burnout can be caused by being overworked, low pay, and unsupportive co-workers.  Compassion fatigue is when a worker becomes traumatized by their client’s trauma and begins to copy their behavior. The symptoms of burnout are withdrawal from family, exhaustion, lack of passion, frustration, and more. Compassion fatigue may have similar symptoms, but the worker will be more emotionally and physically exhausted. The worker may become detached and unable to connect to clients, family, and friends.

Burnout Indicators

        Many workers in the human service field experience burnout from their jobs. Ms. Dowdy explained that her work environment can become very stressful. Her caseload can become heavy and leaves her very little time to do the job, or have downtime for herself. Many workers are not aware that they are experiencing burnout as it usually happens gradually over a period of time. Diagnosis a worker with burnout can be hard as the symptoms are not always easy to see. It takes a bigger crisis in the worker’s life to sometimes see that they are burned out from the stress of their job.

        Some of the indicators of burnout are exhaustion both mental and physical, becoming easily frustrated, inpatient, loss of interest in job, depressed, and much more. There are many indicators that can lead to the diagnosis of burnout. Workers who become burned out tend to gradually lose interest, complain about their job, and eventually become withdrawn from their co-workers and clients. The worker will most likely not show every symptom but if a supervisor or co-worker is aware of the worker’s attitude and that it has changed over time should become concerned for their well-being.