The Importance of Self-Care for Immigrant Advocates

By Susan Schmidt, DSW, LGSW

For those of us who have worked in the United States with immigrants and refugees since the Trump administration, and even before, it may feel like we experienced a less recognized policy and public opinion pandemic, before the global viral pandemic that is widely acknowledged. In September, we also remember the 20th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, and those who were killed and impacted by the weaponization of airplanes that brought down the Twin Towers in New York City, hit the Pentagon outside Washington, DC, and crashed in Shanksville, PA, after passenger intervention. These terrorist attacks led to shifts in priorities and tactics by law enforcement, intelligence, military, and politicians; they also altered public opinion toward immigrants. From this broader historical perspective, perhaps this service provider stress goes back 20 years, not merely the past five years, and is felt not only by immigrants and refugees themselves but also by those who assist, advocate for, and accompany them.

How should these practitioners, providers, carers, and advocates care for themselves, as they support and stand with the immigrants and refugees who have experienced a range of oppressions firsthand?

Perhaps the first step is to acknowledge what we’ve been through. From the time Donald Trump entered the U.S. presidential contest, he made clear his disparagement of immigrants and his intent to disrupt immigration policy. Once elected as president, Trump implemented anti-immigrant policies, resulting in more than 1,000 immigration-related policy changes during his tenure. Programs and policies were altered or dismantled in ways that harmed rather than helped. The U.S. refugee resettlement program shrunk to its smallest size since the program began, and asylum seekers were denied protections via policy changes large and small.

The immigration-related stress of the Trump administration overlapped with the beginning of a global pandemic, which expanded a narrower realm of immigration anxiety to a broader fear that reached from one’s home to the entire globe. When can we release ourselves from fear? Perhaps by acknowledging the breadth and depth of what we have experienced—and are still experiencing—we can become more intentional in releasing that fear, or at least learning how to live with it.

For those working with refugees and immigrants, this field of practice offers both risk factors and protective factors. Risk factors include the following:

• A moving target: Working in this field requires an ability to adapt to regularly changing conditions nationally and internationally, evolving policies and procedures, and fluctuating public opinion, in ways that are often beyond one’s control.

• Secondary trauma: People on the move may have experienced trauma while still living in their homeland—perhaps a root cause of their migration experience; while in transit, such as deprivation or assault while en route and at the mercy of others; and after arrival in their destination country. Service providers may absorb these traumatic experiences and over time may experience them as part of their own story.

• Blurred boundaries: When the needs are great, it can be harder to maintain healthy professional boundaries. This may look like sharing personal information, personal resources, or personal time with clients. Providers and advocates who come from the same immigrant or refugee community may find it more difficult to establish and maintain a separation between personal and professional life, increasing the risk of burnout.

At the same time, this work offers protective factors, including the following:

• Human connection: Assisting individuals as they acclimate to the United States, helping families to be reunited after separation, and working alongside newcomers as they contribute to communities in the United States can be fulfilling by developing relationships with others across similarities and differences. This human connection can serve as a buffer against other stressors that come with the work.

• Values based: Working with refugees and immigrants can allow practitioners to apply personal values of hospitality, protection of human rights, generosity, fairness, etc., in addition to the six core social work principles: service, social justice, dignity and worth of the person, importance of human relationships, competence, and integrity. Applying one’s values in practice can give one’s work meaning and make it feel like a calling rather than just a job. These values can also be a reason to value oneself enough to practice self-care and get into or return to a healthy balance.

• Interdisciplinary: Working across disciplines, e.g., policy, political science, education, community development, and human services, can provide multiple approaches and perspectives in problem solving. This professional diversity can also provide a broader network for responding to systemic challenges.

For helping professionals who have weathered these changes over five years or 20, how do we engage in self-care?

• Find balance: Put parameters around one’s work life so that other sources of pleasure outside of work have time and space to flourish. Giving the mind a break from work pressures can help us return to work with renewed energy. Avenues for faith expression, spirituality, and mindfulness can be part of finding balance.

• Ensure basic needs: Skimping on basic needs such as sleep, healthy food, and exercise can catch up with us eventually and put the rest of our lives out of balance. Sleep can assist with good judgment in decision making.

• Focus on what you can change ... in the short term: Social work is a profession that emphasizes planned change. At the same time, it can be healthy to recognize those things that we cannot change, at least in the short term.

• Allow others to give to you: Those in helping professions may become used to being the giver. But giving is a gift for both the receiver and the giver. Allow others to give to you. Open yourself to allowing others to care for you in some way, whether it is allowing a colleague to take over a meeting or a new case, a family member to take over a household chore, or going out for a massage or other relaxing activity.

• Organizational support: Share the particular stressors of one’s work within one’s organization, and request support when needed. Supervisors may not understand the pressures unless you share them, and organizations have an interest in their employees’ ability to effectively serve clients as well as a responsibility to both employees and clients.

• Seek help when needed: Recognize the signs of burnout (specific to a particular job) and compassion fatigue (more generalized emotional depletion), as well as the differences, and seek out help from professionals.

• Take action ... for the long term: Getting involved in collective action, political campaigns, advocacy, organizing, and outreach can help maintain hope that change is possible by taking practical concrete steps towards larger change.

Conclusion
The importance of social worker self-care—across all contexts and populations—is central to our integrity as individuals and organizations. NASW has recognized this by adding the following to the Code of Ethics in 2021:

“Professional self-care is paramount for competent and ethical social work practice. Professional demands, challenging workplace climates, and exposure to trauma warrant that social workers maintain personal and professional health, safety, and integrity. Social work organizations, agencies, and educational institutions are encouraged to promote organizational policies, practices, and materials to support social workers’ self-care.”

Our care for others depends upon also caring for ourselves.

— Susan Schmidt, DSW, LGSW, is an assistant professor of social work and field director at Luther College.