Taking care of your health is important no matter what you do for a living. But when it comes to AOD work it’s all the more important. Working in the AOD sector can be very rewarding but the passion and dedication that drives many who work in AOD sector can potentially lead to stress, burnout and even ‘compassion fatigue’ if not accompanied by solid self-care strategies.

Designed for the non government AOD sector, NADA’s worker wellbeing resources ask workers to invest as much time and care looking after their health as they do others.

Training

Feeling overwhelmed and on edge in the wale of COVID-19? You’re not alone. As difficult as this situation is-and as powerless as you might sometimes feel-there are steps you can take to improve your health and wellbeing.

This eLearning course has been developed to help AOD workers cope with stress and uncertainty during COVID-19. It explores the factors that make coping difficult and outlines a variety of helpful tips and strategies to support you to look after yourself during these challenging times.

By the end of this course, you should be able to:

• explain why coping during a public health crisis as an AOD worker is challenging
• identify your stress response and emotional triggers
• apply proven coping and relaxation tools and techniques to reduce stress and enhance health and wellbeing.

Resources

Working in the AOD Sector can be very rewarding. Nevertheless, as with any job, the work can also take a toll when demands exceed our resources and ability to manage and cope.

For practical wellbeing and self-care tips, download:

Resource	Description
Well Beings (video)	This short animation series provides workers with practical, science-backed tips and tricks to reduce stress and enhance health and wellbeing.
How are you going (poster, PDF)	Developed in partnership with the Centre for Rural and Remote Mental Health, this resource encourages workers to check-in to see where they’re at regularly.
The ABCs of self-care (poster, PDF)	This resource promotes the ABCs of self-care–a framework that promotes awareness, balance, and connection as being key to preventing work-induced stress and trauma.
Worker self-care check (online survey)	Complete this survey to assess your current self-care practice. The survey is designed to help workers identify whether there’s is an imbalance in the areas in which they practice self-care.
Professional quality of life scale (online survey)	The ProQol is a commonly used measure to help workers understand the positive and negative aspects of helping. While not intended as a diagnostic tool, how you score will provide a guide on how likely you are experiencing compassion satisfaction, burnout and secondary traumatic stress so that you can take steps to protect and nurture your health and wellbeing.
Workplace wellbeing health check (online survey)	Targeted at managers and supervisors, this survey has been developed to help respondents understand organisational factors that can affect worker wellbeing.
Workplace wellbeing policy (policy, DOCX)	Workplace wellbeing programs offer a wide range of benefits. This template is intended as a starting point to help organisations articulate their workplace wellbeing policy.

Publications

NADA has partnered with NCETA (National Centre for Education and Training on Addiction) to examine the state of worker wellbeing in NSW.

To read about the project’s findings, download:

Publication	Description
Enhancing alcohol and other drug worker’s wellbeing: a literature review (report, pdf)	This publication describes key findings from a literature review, together with an outline of contextual issues, related to the health and wellbeing of AOD workers.
Characteristics and wellbeing of the NSW non-government AOD workforce (infographic, pdf; report, pdf)	These publications present key findings from a survey examining the health and wellbeing of 294 NGO AOD workers in NSW.
Predictors of work engagement among Australian non-government drug and alcohol employees: Implications for policy and practice (abstract)	This study examined work-related factors as predictors of engagement.
Predictors of turnover intention in the non government alcohol and other drug sector (abstract)	This study examined work-related factors as predictors of turnover intention.
Lived Experience: Characteristics of workers in alcohol and other drug nongovernment organizations (abstract)	This study aimed to (1) investigate the prevalence of lived experience in AOD workers, (2) build an initial profile of workers with lived experience, (3) identify areas where appropriate support mechanisms may be warranted, and (4) generate recommendations for future work.

For further information about this project, contact sianne@nada.org.au.

NADA’s worker wellbeing resources are supporting by the Australian Government Department of Health.

Keywords: wellbeing