Speak your truth: burnout – Q8

Panel members

• Kate Read (KR) – Founder/CEO, Inspires & Co
• Rachel Arnold (RA) – Founder and Lead Support Coordinator, Latitude Support Coordination
• Zena Dyson (ZD) – Specialist Support Coordinator/Team Leader, Esteem Care Services
• Kylie Walker (KW) – Owner, Healthy Emporium
• Sarah Milliken (SM) – Team Leader & Support Coordinator, Let's Connect Support Services
• Veronica Santomingo (VS) – Support Coordinator, Richmond Fellowship Queensland
• Sabine Hazlett (SH) – Support Coordinator, Lifestyle Mentor Services
• Aylin Taylor (AT) – Support Coordinator, Tailored Options
• Elizabeth Hickey (EH) – Support Coordinator, AFA Support Coordination
• Stephen Hughes (St H) – Specialist Support Coordinator, Wellspace Australia
• Danni Bament (DB) – Managing Director, Aspire Recovery Connection

Are there any strategies or practices you’ve put in place that have made a big difference to your workload – systems that have freed up time and helped you to improve efficiency?

KR – A good software system is a must. I still haven’t found one that does everything I need, but it is OK.

RA – No, none that I can think of that have worked.

I do not have any ‘free time’, and always feel that there is something that urgently needs doing. I do have a system in place for my emails that works fairly well and ensures that urgent ones are followed up on ASAP, and ones that can wait a little while are moved to a different area.

Unfortunately, this does not always work, as I notice that my ‘waiting emails’ tend to pile up as I am always dealing with urgent ones.

I do also sometimes turn my phone on silent, if working on a report for example, so that I am able to concentrate with no distractions.

ZD – Yes, I have put in place many strategies since I first started in this particular role 12 months ago.

You learn a lot as you go in support coordination and learn where you can free up time, especially with paperwork. The more organised you get, the more efficient you become.

KW – My strategies and practices include:

• Delegating tasks to others – I am the owner though, so it’s easier for me.
• Blocking time for certain tasks (e.g. report writing) and having do not disturb on.
• Setting expectations when going into calls with participants (e.g. 'I have scheduled x amount of time').
• Case noting as I go – never, ever do I case note at the end of the day, as it’s not efficient.
• Have received and sent folders for every participant, making it easy to allocate anything quickly.
• Working in a CRM.
• We have a participant update document which is live, so we always know what is outstanding at any given time.
• We have an onboarding checklist to put key dates into the calendar for each participant, and therefore you never worry you have missed anything.

SM – I always say work smarter not harder. Things like writing in notes as you go instead of at the end of the day help. Action plans with implementation dates, use your Outlook calendar to set reminders etc.

Putting in notes as you go is a huge one for me. It is easier than needing to go back through phone logs and email correspondence at the end of the day and spending half an hour extra doing it.

VS – I use an excel spreadsheet that has important ‘at a glance’ information for all my clients. This is especially helpful when dealing with the NDIA as date of birth is often not something I can remember.

SH – This is an ongoing process – monthly meetings allow for conversation about processes and whether things need to be streamlined.

The willingness of management to hear from their on the ground staff and action those requests, makes a world of difference to our efficiency.

AT – Absolutely, I’ve recently cut down my caseload mainly due to going back to university to complete my Masters in Mental Health. Since cutting down my caseload, I’m a lot less stressed, and have more time for myself to re-energise and to plan for next year.

I’ve done this through organisation – making sure work has been completed, mostly the high priority work that needs addressing, which can be ongoing depending on the work, and also notifying the participants I work with of my current situation and ongoing work with them now and in the future.

EH – Over the last few years, I have continually participated in professional development. Many of these courses have provided me with opportunities to network and discuss options and supports and different ways to do things.

Peer mentoring and supervision has been paramount to work through my processes and the way I go about doing the routine tasks – I have adapted many different routine processes, such as the discussions I have while onboarding clients, simply because of discussions that help me to identify changes that will work better for my clients.

Making sure I have appropriate software that suits my needs has been a huge game changer – while I started with paper files, I was convinced that I had to buy all the shiny industry specific software and that would fix everything, even when it would cost a fortune and not be specific. In the end, I found the simplest solution that isn’t even specific to the caring industry, and this has reduced my paperwork, is very easy to use, and integrates so many of the different jobs.

St H – Yes, voice-to-text and hand-writing-to-text case notes have changed my life, especially as I don’t particularly type that fast. I even used it to write this feedback!

(DB) – Having a good case management system where you can easily record and track your billing definitely helps. As does giving yourself time at the start or end of the day to make sure you record your case notes and billing on a daily basis.

I recommend to my team to block out the last half an hour of their day, turn their phone and emails to silent, and use this time to finish your admin and documentation for the day. It means you’re not starting the next day on the back foot.

Click here for question 9.