Part 2 – Trauma-informed practice: Reducing risk and improving outcomes

welcome to risk on air by law cover and for the second part of the risk on air series about trauma we discuss how to deal with trauma amongst lawyers welcome to risk on air i'm julian morrow and this is the second part of our series on trauma-informed care in legal practice so it's welcome back to rachel clements co-founder of the center for corporate health group welcome back rachel thank you for having me back we had a great conversation about the basics of trauma and trauma-informed care last time and i suppose our focus understandably was the client this episode let's focus a little bit more on how doing those things impacts on lawyers before we deal with some of the challenges i thought i might ask you what are the benefits to lawyers of taking a trauma informed approach i would say one you've got hopefully a calmer client and i have done no additional harm to that individual and that's a skill i always think that's a real skill and a real strength it means that there's less likelihood of any misinformation or anything being missed important detail and we know that the biggest source of complaints about lawyers is communication absolutely that's right and so if i've taken a trauma-informed approach it absolutely minimizes the chances that i've made an error i've missed some important details and information therefore resulting in less likelihood of complaints for lawyers and hopefully just a smoother process for everybody involved and maybe a little less stress on the lawyer as well a lot of the things we talked about were about communication modes but you also used a key phrase at one point about maintaining professional boundaries how do you strike that balance between being more emotionally engaged and doing the professional job what are the key elements of maintaining professional boundaries that's a really great question because we are asking lawyers a little bit in this situation then to open their hearts as well as their minds which we know if people are doing that a lot does set people up for that risk of exposure to vicarious trauma themselves as a lawyer really being able to establish those professional boundaries is absolutely essential it is up to the lawyer to be able to gently put those boundaries up and set those boundaries in place because if i'm unwell and not traveling so well and someone is showing me a bit of concern and some care and some empathy naturally i may gravitate towards them if you are feeling as if you are becoming overly emotionally invested in this particular matter maybe seeking that support from a superior so monitoring your own involvement this is an interesting point because in order to do this you do need to have quite high levels of self-awareness and one of the defining features of lawyers is that they're so focused on their KPIs or their client outcomes or achieving things that actually lawyers do have quite low self-awareness for their own well-being so we do a lot of work with lawyers actually trying to change that and try to tune in rather than tune out because that is certainly a big skill in being able to prevent either compassion fatigue or vicarious trauma so it is essential that lawyers do put up those boundaries and also just being able to you know switch off after those interactions too if you feel as if that matter is particularly getting its psychological hooks into you and it sounds like there's a couple of things that can go wrong for the lawyer or the law firm when that's the case one of them you refer to is vicarious trauma so what is vicarious trauma and how can law firms do the best they can to prevent it from happening i think best practice is very much to address the vicarious trauma exposure or risk at an individual level at a team level and an organizational level to fully prevent psychological harm for lawyers through getting that vicarious trauma are there telltale signs of vicarious trauma emerging yes very much telltale signs so the definition of vicarious trauma is it's a negative transformation that tends to occur over time in myself as a lawyer from that empathic engagement with trauma survivors so there's a couple of key pieces there one is it's cumulative it doesn't usually happen from a one-off experience or short-term exposure i always call it a bit of a silent respect it can creep up on people people don't necessarily notice the little well-being erosion that may occur over a period of some years even the other key point of that definition is the negative transformation and that is a defining feature of vicarious trauma if i am exposed and vicarious trauma is starting to get its hooks into me i start to have a change in worldview and because my worldview has changed i then start to interact and behave in a way that is different in the world so for example i've worked with lawyers who have worked on matters of childhood sexual abuse or child safety and i have worked with lawyers where they become their worldview changes the world is no longer a safe place for the children in my life so my behavior starts to change as a result i start to become more vigilant of those children which can lead to sometimes quite unhelpful behavior and also a lot of anxiety for that individual if vicarious trauma starts to get its hooks into people i've actually seen people develop symptoms extremely similar to post-traumatic stress disorder so it could be some of those symptoms such as the hyper arousal symptoms it could be the cognitive load i can't switch those thoughts off i'm here i am on a weekend trying to relax and i've got thoughts of that matter just those intrusive kind of thoughts creeping in it can be just that hyper vigilance around safety it can be extreme sleep disturbance nightmares extreme mood changes such as anger irritability social withdrawal disconnection but predominantly vicarious trauma has a heavy load on the anxiety kind of cluster and i don't know if i'm going on a limb here but would it be the case that if vicarious trauma is emerging that you might need to take a trauma-informed approach to dealing with that issue yes absolutely a trauma-informed approach like if i was disclosing this to a manager to say look i really feel as if these cases are taking a little bit of a toll on me the manager how they react in that moment that individual comes to them is very important how do you intervene in an emerging situation well best practice would be and this is what a few quite a few firms are doing now best practice is actually to give people the skills before they start now firms are actually getting in at the very front end so sometimes we are helping firms with selection of lawyers before they start on particular matters just to make sure that they have the psychological skills of psychological capability to withstand the exposure so are we creating a risk for somebody for putting somebody who may have some vulnerabilities in that role in the first place so sometimes now we are having a little bit of an influence in the recruitment process and we're not going to create or cause psychological harm to a lawyer by putting them in the wrong job in the first place could it ever happen that a lawyer who is in the process of being vicariously traumatized might be approached with a check-in or something like that might say no no i'm fine oh very common because one of the symptoms of vicarious trauma is avoidance of thoughts feelings and conversations sometimes we might work with organizations where they say oh we're doing just fine without exposure to vicarious trauma we might say well what are you doing and they say oh we've got an employee assistance program these days that is not enough because probably if i've got vicarious trauma and i'm avoiding thoughts feelings and conversations about it there is no way i'm going to lean into that counseling service that might be provided to me when denials the syndrome you couple the onus on the first absolutely and there has been a legal case the coseroff case that really set the tone legally for that basically that said the employer fails in their duty of care because it is not enough when you have people exposed to that particular psychosocial risk of vicarious trauma you need to do much more than have a counseling service and a policy on vicarious trauma you have to be so proactive so some of the strategies that the firms are using now that we're working with and this is really backed up by a lot of the research is giving people firstly that education session first up and we usually do like a 90 minute two-hour session if i'm in a role where i'm going to be exposed to vicarious trauma these are all the things that i can do as an individual to protect myself these are the early warning signs to be aware of this is just kind of normalizing that this may happen i might go through a time where some matters might get on top of me a little bit and these are the protection skills and strategies that i can utilize we also do a lot in that session around the impact of peer-to-peer support because that is a huge protective factor if we have a great supportive team where we have a iuak type culture within our team when you've got cultures like that with really strong peer-to-peer support that is highly protective against the impact of vicarious trauma and we also do leader training and with leaders we look at work demands workload active monitoring of cases the types of trauma people might have in their mix do we have a tracking system to track that you know how are we having well-being conversations with my team on a regular basis do we have good psychological safety to be able to talk about this that we know strong psychological safety in a team is a huge protective factor but also now what many law firms are now doing is what we call that small group supervision so if i if i just have a job where i'm pretty much permanently exposed to vicarious trauma we need to build in those more formalized structures for psychological support that's not really an opt-out they're a little bit more mandatory we call it small group supervision a small group maybe six to eight lawyers would get together every eight to 12 weeks with one of our psychological consultants and we go through an hour with them around tell me about paces or matters that might be getting their hooks into you tell me how that's impacting you we do this more as a group but more importantly let's look at how we can support each other as a peer cohort and we can detect people early small group supervision sessions have been shown in the research on vicarious trauma to be a huge protective factor so we can actually keep people well in their career by putting that strategy in the alternative strategy is to build in one-on-one well checks and typically these might be done every quarter every six months they used to be done more annually but i think because now vicarious trauma has presented as being such a massive psychosocial risk now for the legal profession firms need to be much more on top of that risk of vicarious trauma so well checks might be done now every six months and the good thing is we're able to tell right early on when vicarious trauma may be starting to onset and then be able to with a few different workplace interventions and individual interventions completely turn that around because from what you said having a proactive approach to the risk of vicarious trauma isn't just a humane thing to do there's literally high court authority for the fact that it's about risk minimization as well absolutely and that high court ruling basically said the employer has much more of a duty of care much more of a proactive positive obligation and 10 years ago or even five years ago it was very much a reactive world would just wait until someone comes forward to say hey i'm not traveling so well that reactive approach is not good enough anymore that is actually doing psychological harm we need to get ahead of the curve we need to be able to predict what teams in our organization may be at risk of vicarious trauma and let's front end a whole lot of best practice strategies we can't job design vicarious trauma explosion out of somebody's job but what we can do we can significantly reduce the risk of actually getting vicarious trauma you referred to workplace interventions earlier is it the case that successful workplace interventions may involve continuing to experience vicarious trauma but staying in the workplace realm of these traumatic experiences and sometimes it might also mean moving away yes of course you're in a job that exposes you to vicarious trauma you need to be pristine about your mental health prevention you need to be engaging in preventative strategies i would say every single day one needs to be incredibly vigilant conscious and effortful about staying well and leadership support is a massive protective factor we know that team members well-being 70 of my well-being at work as a team member is predicted by the quality of my relationship with my leader so that means that if i've got a leader that's incredibly supportive that will check in on me now and again take an interest in who i am as a person express a bit of empathy and concern actively manage my workload a little bit if i've got someone that's got my back i can be very protected for others that maybe are in different environments or maybe i've done the job for 10 or 15 years and it just is unrelenting that's where i have seen lawyers say i need a break from this i do want to go on and do something different and use my skills maybe in another area or sometimes people's circumstances change so i've met lots of females even who have gone off and had a baby and then they come back to their job and they said i can't do this work anymore my life circumstances have changed my world view has now changed and now i know myself i'm at risk being in a job where you are exposed to elements of vicarious trauma takes a huge emotional load it's doubly fatiguing so there's various junctions in people's life or lifestyle where they may come to a point where they say this is now taking a toll on my mental health let's move on now to what might be at the other end of the scale but still a challenge and risk compassion fatigue what's that and what are the problems associated with it yeah compassion fatigue is quite different to vicarious trauma compassion fatigue is really defined as emotional and physical exhaustion from prolonged exposure to others trauma it can include some very common symptoms such as that kind of numbing kind of lost my empathy i've lost that compassion i'm not reacting or responding i'm not feeling anything much not only at work but out in my personal life with my friends or my family it can be irritability short-temperedness anger it can be physical exhaustion it can be avoidance of particular cases as well but what doesn't have and this is different for vicarious trauma this is the defining feature it doesn't have a negative transformation in that particular lawyer so my worldview i'm tired i'm exhausted but my worldview has not shifted and changed i'm not behaving in the world differently at all i'm just exhausted so that is very different to vicarious trauma compassion fatigue is also probably a little easier to get on top of if i'm experiencing it so most people where i've seen through compassion fatigue they haven't done anything for their own well-being so they've given everything to the job but i'm not actively viewing my well-being as conscious competence in this job if someone's listening to this now and they've identified either with the vicarious trauma side of things or the compassion fatigue is there a particular step that you'd recommend for that listener today to do and is it different depending on which one it is it's not different really for whichever one it is i think just firstly if you have now had the awareness that that maybe relates to me that's the first step i would say absolutely leaning into that professional help if you can get on top of this early we can absolutely stop a little problem from becoming a bigger one leaning into that professional support if you're in a firm or an organization that has an employee assistance program that's a wonderful source of support confidential counseling services of no charge for yourself or if you may access the law society's counseling service as well 1-800-592-296 solicitor's outreach service sos or even being able to link into gp getting a referral for a medicare plan and being able to see a psychologist is going to be very useful if there's anyone that you can that you trust at work if you've got that psychological safety at work to be able to disclose to a manager i think that that makes it a lot easier you're not having to positively impression manage every single day or reaching out for that peer support if you've got a trusted peer or friend at work as well what if i'm listening now and i think i'm probably fine whether i'm in denial or because i actually am fine but i think i know someone in my workplace who might be in that zone that we've been talking about what should i do then be an active peer supporter i would say a lot of the time when people are either experiencing compassion fatigue or vicarious trauma they have no self-awareness that they're shifting and changing so sometimes being able to have a really caring honest and authentic conversation with my fellow peer and colleague is the light bulb moment for someone if you're not the best person to have that conversation maybe tap somebody else on the shoulder to do it but if you feel as if you've got those good emotional deposits with that particular person you could lean into that conversation just to say hey i just wanted to check in with you i've noticed a bit of a change in you in the last little while and that you don't seem quite yourself i'm here to support you how are things going how are you traveling are you okay so leaning into those are you okay type conversations now what we notice sometimes with a legal profession is that that can start a process for somebody that might not happen in one nice neat conversation lawyers do tend to be quite ruminative so that means that they won't forget that you've had that conversation what they'll take away is you're concerned about me and you care about me so in the moment might say thanks for checking in i'm absolutely fine how are you going sometimes the key in the legal profession is to have a series of little door open conversations be gently persistent if you get a more of a mass response if i'm fine if you notice that they're still not fine go in again you're using what we call that broken record technique where you sound like the broken record but to that person they're hearing it again for the very first time so it's not uncommon with lawyers to have maybe three two or three little door open conversations before someone will lean into that conversation so my advice is don't give up be gently persistent if someone does open up in that conversation the very first time that you've asked that is a true testament to you that you have created that psychological safety where that person feels as if it's okay for me to share a little personal vulnerability with you and if i'm in a position of authority in a law firm and i want to start being the leader who's responsible for the sort of culture where these issues can be ventilated how do i start that process start talking about it with your team and really the secret ingredient the biggest predictive factor of high performance is strong psychological well-being so no brainer so it's good for business it's not really a nice to have these days it's business critical it's business imperative to get good at the competency of well-being so start talking about it with your team start to look at more formalized structures that we can put in place to support people but at the end of the day it's around just making people feel as if i care about you as a human i care about you as a person i care about the impact that this job may have on you from time to time and to initiate those well-being conversations so it becomes bau business as usual you're not just having them when you've noticed a shift you're creating the psychological safety from the get-go well rachel thank you so much for informing us about trauma informed care and hopefully this conversation between us will be the beginning of lots of other conversations in legal workplaces that'll make them safer for clients and lawyers alike thanks for having me thanks for listening to risk on air by law cover and to stay up to date join us for the next episode on current risks in legal practice