I’m looking for some kind of collective care process for people working on regularly distressing areas such as the genocide in Palestine (but also potentially far right extremism in the UK, war or conflicts around the world, the hostile environment, climate breakdown). Ideally something which builds care into the culture of the organisation so it’s not on individuals to seek one-one help if they burn out - what could this look like in meetings, managing workload, creating regular moments for collective check-ins, designing objectives that might not all be work-driven?
My organisation is relatively big but the department which works on peace and climate justice (which I’m in) is around 15-20 people and we have some scope to build our own processes.
Hi Rebecca, have you thought about some ongoing and regular form of group reflective practice? I wouldn’t make it compulsory but for people to choose to participate if they feel that they might benefit. I’m happy to talk to you about what we are doing in our organisation?
Great question, one we should all be grappling with to do better on as these things become ever more present in our work
We make sure to check in at the start of meetings, sometimes that invite is to share something positive but sometimes it’s just sharing things that are going on and usually once one person shares about how wider things are affecting them, that invites everyone else to do so. I find this really helpful to just share and means we can notice when someone isn’t ok (hopefully) - sounds like a mini version of what Noella suggested!
This is also a hard one but I’d say reducing workload overall so it’s genuinely ok to move something around/ ask someone else to help etc because people aren’t so stretched. This one feels hard when the world needs our work (I certainly find it hard, doing less..)
Maybe those objectives that aren’t so productivity driven could be designed with your team? I’m sure they’d have some great ideas once the tone is set for how expansive you’re thinking. Could be people being able to go together to something that makes them feel the solidarity and strength of the movements working joyfully against these things - e.g. a community festival or something like that! Injecting some joy in the resistance tends to be the antidote to burnout for me
I’d be interested to hear what you settle on/ ideas you come up with!