TPC-Journal-V2-Issue1

94 The Professional Counselor \Volume 2, Issue 1 One of the struggles I had at the beginning was pay. Because it didn’t afford me, literally, the chance to do things to take care of myself, that I wanted to do to take care of myself. So if I had a weekend I couldn’t take a trip to the beach for the weekend. It had to be a quick jaunt and back because I couldn’t afford a hotel. Resources also included counselor workloads, specifically in terms of how many clients each counselor had to see a day to maintain reimbursement policies. Brian discussed the lack of funding and explained that agencies must work “bare bones…skeleton crew basically.” One participant, Helen, commented on her caseload: Money can drive a lot of things. Like the choices that you could make [before reimbursement] were more about the clients and what was needed, or what you wanted to try, and then you know Medicaid or other external forces enter, and then decisions have to be made on a different basis. The number of people you would even take would change. [before Medicaid]… There was a lot of flexibility, there was no external pressure to take a certain amount of clients and then there were great conversations and the ability to envision what you should do, and there was the time do it, and there was opportunity to review what you have done, and build the relationships and get feedback on your work, and whereas now, you have put in the time and you have to make the numbers and you lose the time to create relationships or talk about what you are doing. Similarly, Brian discussed how large caseloads and working with clients back-to-back affected his performance when stating: Basically, it took away from the services I was able to offer. But most of all it took away from me. You know my energy level, and just across the board I wasn’t able to do all of the things you would like to do as a quality counselor like planning…often it was sort of on the cusp. Participants described the various resources within their agencies that influenced their sense of wellness. They identified the lack of resources as a barrier to their wellness, which also affected the quality of client care and enthusiasm for their work. Time Management Participants discussed time constraints as barriers to their wellness and their ability to maintain optimal performance with clients. They mentioned heavy caseloads as well as administrative duties and paperwork requirements as obstacles to their wellness that also reduced the quality of client services. Additionally, they believed that there was not adequate time for other important aspects of their development, such as supervision. One participant, David, discussed his frustration with not being able to sufficiently prepare for sessions, stating, “there was kind of this disconnect with how long it took to prepare for a session to do it right, or how long it would take to do a group, and to do it right.” He further proposed that the problem may be lessened even without reducing the caseload; “maybe it’s not about the number of clients as much as, maybe it’s just about a scheduling thing too, if you could just spread these clients out, thin enough.” Participants also discussed administrative duties such as paperwork as wellness barriers that take away from the true meaning of their work. For instance, David stated that, “what was most stressful wasn’t working one-on-one with clients, it was just the amount of paperwork and catch up. You literally feel like you’re running a marathon when you walk in the room.” Brian described the draining effects of paperwork by stating, “I found myself very disenchanted because the work that I wanted to do was with people and often I found I was just doing documentation.” Finally, participants discussed the importance of making time for appropriate supervision and consultation in maintaining their wellness. For example, when comparing an agency where she felt greater wellness to her previous agency, Fatin stated that the difference is: The support and the peer consultation, and the time to do that. The level of respect is much higher. There is respect for the administrator; you can approach her with feedback. [There are] high ethical standards and consulting, and the open-door policy. Just makes it so you never feel worried that you will make a mistake, because a lot of people are holding you up. When talking about the need to differentiate client staffing from clinical supervision, Brian explained that supervisors often, “don’t do supervision with their employees…or supervision is staffing. It’s the same.” He further explained, “Ideally, you have a sit-down with a person and do supervision. So they have a chance to talk about how they’re feeling,