Building Bridges: How Mental Health Providers and Community Engagement go Hand in Hand
A Clinician's Point of View
Current Happenings at Integrate:
Pre-sale! Our Human-Centered Communication Course launches on January 2
Practice! Human-Centered Communication in a low-risk environment on November 25 (FREE!)
Plan! Learn ways to get involved in our Trauma Informed Professionals group (November 18th)
-Our vetting process
-Subject Matter Expert and Social Impact Catalyst Community
Participate: Join our live LinkedIn webinar on Protecting Your Community from Coercive Control (November 16th-Thursday)
Blog! Mental Health Providers Becoming Community Co-Creator (From a clinician’s point of view)
By: Sarah O’Brien
Image ID: People gathering in a living room listening to people talk.
Why Aren’t My Fellow Therapists Participating in Communities?
I have been a part of various in-person and virtual communities with other mental health professionals throughout my 15-year career as a direct-service mental health provider. I have noticed that mental health providers seem to have difficulty sharing in a community space. Specifically, being authentic with their views and personal struggles, therefore, stifling the genuine connection and support that could be curated in these community spaces. I’ve asked myself why this seems to be the case. Possible lack of understanding about how to participate in communities of like-professionals? I definitely notice mental health pros seem to struggle with authentic self-sharing. Is this due to fear? Discomfort? Uncertainty? Is it because we are always wearing ‘the helping-someone-else’ hat so we have difficulty taking off that professional hat and putting on our ‘just another human’ hat? It is due to our own lived experiences and potential trauma histories that prevent us from showing up as our true, full, human selves in professional spaces? Is it due to an anxious or avoidant attachment style?
I don’t have many hard answers here, only theory and conjecture. And many years of witnessing a pattern among our profession in several and varied community spaces. Getting connected to a professional community of aligned business professionals with overlap into other human services, a community that specifically focuses on using trauma-informed communication and action skills to engage within the community, has been a real eye-opener. I have observed and participated within Integrate’s community and as a result have some ideas and thoughts of my own about why engaging WELL with other mental health professionals in professional community spaces seems to elude us clinicians.
Perhaps It’s About Safety?
Ultimately, I believe we don’t know how and/or don’t feel safe or comfortable to do so. And I ABSOLUTELY level with this and understand. Why don’t know we know how, though? And why don’t we feel safe? We’re all clinicians, right? Therapists who understand the human experience and how to hold space for others and all their human stuff? Right?
Well, no. Wrong actually. Or not fully accurate, shall I say? We may (or may not, depending on your specialty) know how to successfully hold space for others when we’re wearing our professional therapist hat, but not amongst ourselves when the “therapist hat” comes off. Especially as professionals, who, in the words of my amazing mentor, are also humans and in our full humanity, have nuanced and lived experiences of our own…and probably some of our own trauma and nervous system activations that get kicked up in spaces with other people, and all of their full humanity, too.
So, how do we address this? How do we show up as our full human (and professional) selves and engage, participate, support others, as well as, FEEL other’s engagement, participation and support for us?
Co-Creation as the currency for community
Well, that brings me to discussing the Strategy around how to connect, engage, and participate in a professional community space AND feel seen, heard, understood, respected, and supported, both personally and professionally. The Give and Take Process. Professionals who join a community for resource and referral swapping have a different agenda than those joining seeking to connect with others AND resource/referral swap. To foster connection and community engagement and support, one must give something back to the community. Take a resource, give a resource. Take a referral, pass a referral. Ask for help, offer help. Another key piece to this strategy is Authentic Sound Byte Sharing. What is that exactly? Well, I describe this as low, medium, high levels of share/sharing. Low can be described as something real, something honest, something small. Something you would tell just about anyone. Medium can be described as something true. Something genuine. A thought. An idea. A feeling. Giving a little more insight into real you. And high levels of authentic sound byte sharing can be described as Something a little more vulnerable, more personal. Connecting something from the present with your truth. To increase community engagement and connection, people have to be willing to give a little of themselves. Be real. Be honest. Be yourself. Not trauma-dumping or over-sharing details. Small, true, genuine bits. What’s real for you in life right now? What feels hard? What have you accomplished in work or personal this week or this month?
This may sound uncomfortable, or scary even, to some of us who have not had good experiences with people. We may fear judgment, rejection, and lack of being seen or understood if we share true parts of ourselves. This fear could be due to the lived experiences of a provider from past situations, either in professional or personal communities. It could be that we’ve never done this before, not really in this way, because it’s always been about resource swapping. And it could be because we don’t see anyone else authentically sharing within this professional community space, so we don’t want to be the first…and then be or feel rejected.
First, hear me. I understand this! I have been here SO MANY times myself. I’ve also been the one to bravely be the first to share only to be judged and rejected...so I REALLY get it, folks! It is scary. It is weird. It DOES kick up nervous system activations in my body at times, too.
Vetting for Trauma-Informed Aligned Vision and Action
And then if you can actually get connected, involved, become a part of a community where it functions totally differently, it’s a real game changer. And for me, a real game changer in both my professional and personal life. It is revolutionary, and it feels like that in my body. Allow me to explain a little more. There a few steps or parts to the “how to” in getting connected to a real professional community space with real people with real stuff being shared…and supported! The first is shared understanding about 1. What the community is/is for 2. Who is a part of this community 3. What is the mission or purpose. Next, is having aligned values in the shared understanding, not only what and who the community is for, but also aligned values in how to conduct oneself professionally and in business, some aligned personal values in how you treat/understand/interact with others in the world, and overlap in aligned values for your work or professional goals. How do you KNOW if you are entering a community with aligned valued professionals? Simple! #Vetting. Having and engaging in a vetting process for individuals BEFORE they enter into a community space, ensures everyone has the same values in theory (and hopefully also in behavioral practice) which can significantly reduce misunderstanding/miscommunication, not feeling supported, and the “spinning my wheels” kind of feeling. Basically, #vetting ensures everyone is on the same page upon entering this community space. We all get it, we all agree to behave and communicate in certain ways NO MATTER the subject, AND we all live this out in practice/action.
Vetting is an act of quality assurance
Let’s be clear. Vetting is not gatekeeping. It is not for exclusion. It’s not for elitism. Vetting is conducted to ensure the entire community, ALL THE PEOPLE IN IT, can feel safe, seen, accepted, included, valued, and celebrated for their accomplishments and contributions to the group. The type of vetting I’m referring to specifically for, well really all community spaces, but truly for mental health professionals is demonstrating the ability to understand AND apply trauma-informed/human-centered communication and behaviors across all interactions with others, not just our clients in the therapy room. Why? Because we need spaces like this for ourselves! We need spaces like this with other professionals so we can flourish! We need spaces like this to avoid burnout, to maintain longevity in this emotionally taxing and demanding career field, and even to pivot clinical skills into other overlapping areas or to collaborate on other projects to balance the heavy clinical load with other kinds of interactions and work opportunities!
So, to wrap up. Vetting can ensure that everyone included in a professional community space has shared understanding, aligned values, and the same/similar applicable human-centered skills. When this is the set up, then you can easily engage in authentic sharing, asking, giving, and receiving. The beauty of it all looks like this: a few key players start the Authentic Sound Byte sharing within the community. Some of these same key players heavily support others that authentically share to drive safety and inclusion. Key players, founding members, and/or community managers can provide guidelines for authentic sharing, without activating others. There remains this constant give and take process among ALL community members, which also aligns with trauma-informed values…no one or few people are always giving, and no one or few people are always taking from the community. It remains more balanced, and for humans with nuanced and lived experiences that effect our thoughts, patterns, and functioning, this kind of community balance feels better in our bodies and nervous systems.
Where to learn more?
Follow me (Sarah O’Brien) on LinkedIn; Sarah offers a 2x monthly support group for clinicians to hold space for them in their current lived experiences as mental health professionals in today’s landscape and to begin this process of finding aligned others so we can each grow, learn, achieve, and succeed in this mental health career. #traumainformed #mentalhealthmatters #mentalhealthprofessionals #socialchangeagent #opentowork
Follow Katie Kurtz on LinkedIn to learn how to engage in trauma-informed space holding. Consider her annual CULTIVATE course to learn how to do this effectively in any group space. Katie also has a (monthly?) podcast covering such topics. Tune in to learn more! #traumainformed #mentalhealthmatters #socialchangeagent #coach
Follow Fihmiya Hamdan on LinkedIn to understand community management and community engagement learning how to connect well with the people in your community. She is a wealth of knowledge on how to leverage people and their strengths, ideas, and abilities to better serve the community space for all. #community #traumainformed #opentowork #socialimpact
Follow Julie Johnson and Integrate Network to understand human service provide vetting for community spaces. Julie is a major #changemaker guiding and supporting the rest of us in the network in our own endeavors for #socialchange and making a #socialimpact where it counts! #socialimpact #vetting #community #design #humancentered