Let me say upfront that I am anti-war. I don’t like guns. I have almost zero desire to ever enlist into any sort of military program. Think of me as less “Booya!” and more “Kumbaya!” Yet, as I waded into the muck and mire of the social work profession, and later as I began conducting qualitative research into the effects of vicarious trauma on child protection social workers (and how we may prevent that trauma), my thoughts repeatedly landed on the usefulness of basic military training.
After all, the army trains soldiers to kill and be killed. To defend our country’s interests. They are in the business of life and death. In the theatre of war, lives and families and communities are shaken by all sorts of disruptions, trauma, and loss. How, then, does the military prepare its people to face all of this?
The process of becoming a social worker is actually quite similar in some important respects. Young people are drawn in by the allure of the profession. For soldiers-to-be maybe it’s a fascination with guns or a desire to be a part of something grander. For social workers-to-be perhaps it is the notion of making a profound difference in the lives of children or helping to foster societal change. Unfortunately many green social workers do not benefit from any kind of true “induction” process. There’s little “basic training”. Yes, there’s theory. There are roleplays and written reports or essays and maybe a practicum, but few up-and-coming social workers have actually been tested in the field.
I am reminded of the last term of my BSW. The class was “Counseling for Individuals” or something like that. We were sitting in the classroom doing a fishbowl exercise, and many of us were freaked out. A fishbowl exercise is a mock-counseling session performed by the students in front of the class. It doesn’t matter what theory you know or if you’ve been able to spout off to your fellow students about trendy new counseling interventions or about the skills you have. The fishbowl exercise is the reckoning. It’s the proof. It is in that moment when everyone will know whether or not you can actually conduct a helping conversation or a counseling session with someone. I have to tell you some people were literally sick at the thought of having to showcase their skills (or lack of) to their peers. Many did not show up to class that day. They just couldn’t face the idea that they may be shown to have fallen short. Now if you’ve been in the field for a few years, I doubt you’re scared of the fishbowl exercise. Why would you be? You know better now. How? You have been tested and have a calm sense of what you are capable of. You have nothing to prove because you’ve already passed the test.
However, many of those scared students graduate anyway, get hired by an agency, and they still have something to prove. They’re still scared. That’s where bootcamp would be truly helpful. Here are four things that basic military training instills that social service recruits could benefit from:
- Recruits are acutely challenged…and come out the other side.
You’ve seen the movies- a bunch of kids get put through hell on earth. They are treated poorly. They are kept up all night and made to run through mud and crawl under barbed wire. They are pushed more than they have ever been pushed in their entire lives. Unreasonable demands are made from them. They are pummelled repeatedly in unfair situations. They really suffer. Yet through it all they become unshakable. Suddenly the mundane aches and pains of life, the first-world difficulties and inconveniences are placed in context. Perhaps the greatest gift in all of this is that as they work through real and profound pain they realize that they are indeed capable. They will survive. The anxiety of not knowing whether or not they will measure up is replaced with a tested confidence in their own abilities.
- Recruits develop a robust sense of their place in the world.
A big part of this induction process is about fostering a strong identity. You can see it when you look at a soldier. They have a powerful sense of who they are and what their purpose is. They are not burdened by ambiguity or pluralistic thinking. There is an ironic freedom in this. They do not second guess themselves. They hold to a code. They live according to a system. When all else fails, they rely on the code and the system to get them through.
The other thing recruits benefit from is the acquisition of really useful skills. They train their bodies and their minds, they learn how to survive in the wilderness. They may learn how to fly a plane or fix electronics. They come out of basic training with the knowledge that they are vastly more capable human beings than when they went in. I have watched new social workers get overwhelmed with a full caseload and quickly spiral into avoidant behaviors, eventually getting in trouble and burning out. Yet there is something to be said for the confidence that comes from knowing that you can take competent action to get stuff done. Beginning social workers need early wins to prove to themselves that they have the chops needed to succeed in this insane career.
- Recruits form a deep sense of trust and fraternity with one another.
The great thing about living by a code is that you instantly know a great deal about your fellow soldiers. You get how they think because you’ve been trained to think the same way. Not only that, but because you have crawled in the mud together and have helped each other you experience a fellowship with one another that is rich and meaningful. You know that you have each others’ backs.
I am not going to suggest that being a soldier is the be-all end-all or that soldiers should be social workers (they shouldn’t). In fact, many of the qualities that social workers possess- sensitivity, tolerance of ambiguity, willingness to challenge their own beliefs- are what make them excellent helping professionals.
Yet remember that we are talking about lowering our susceptibility to trauma. This about our survival. We are talking about the emotional and psychological survival of large swaths of people who work as helpers and healers. In this area, the military is on to something. After all, as a profession they predate social workers by many millenia.
I am not saying that we should send our young BSW graduates to military boot camp. What I am saying is that if want to build ourselves into more resilient practitioners, we would be wise to first find ways to test and challenge ourselves- to put ourselves into challenging situations where we can acquire real skills. This would have the effect of making us relatively bomb-proof. It also provides a good boost to our self-concept. In fact, getting “better” (whatever that means for you) could be your greatest antidote to workplace trauma and burnout.
Second, we must have solid sense of what we believe about the world, about our clients, and about ourselves. Untested, faulty, and obsolete beliefs will shatter when taxed. Knowing who you are and what you believe in a robust way will inoculate you from the scourge of vicarious trauma. After all, vicarious trauma is really just the disillusionment and hopelessness that emerges as inadequate beliefs about the world break down and are revealed to be unhelpful. Finally, we must find ways to build solid attachments with those within our fields (these are our comrades in arms) and those on the outside who can be our trusted kindreds.
You may never hold an actual gun in your life or put your own body in harm’s way, but I can guarantee that if you work in social services you are in a state of profound emotional and psychological risk. Research about vicarious trauma and secondary traumatic stress teach us that we do not have to get shot to be harmed by a shooting. We don’t have to have a fist strike our face to be harmed by domestic abuse. All that is required is that we be continually accosted by the relentless tales of such.
Yet if we go on the offensive and train ourselves to overcome we can survive and even thrive.
So what do you think are the biggest challenges new social workers face? Leave a comment and let me know!