Have you ever stopped to consider the psychological impact of constantly dealing with trauma on those who work tirelessly to help others? Melissa Kaiser, an established social worker and North Dakota’s first human trafficking navigator, takes us on a revealing journey into the world of compassion fatigue and secondary trauma, a world she navigates daily in her fight against human trafficking. Melissa unveils how incessantly being exposed to other's trauma can lead to a debilitating erosion of compassion, empathy, and trust, ultimately shifting one's worldview.
As we walk with Melissa through her experiences, she sheds light on her critical role in the Emancipation Nation Network. Her passion for education drives her to create a course aimed at equipping those in the anti-trafficking community with the necessary skills and knowledge to combat trafficking effectively. She emphasizes the importance of fostering open dialogues about compassion fatigue within teams.
Finally, we delve into the importance of also understanding secondary trauma and the need for deep self-care, reflection, and adjustment in such a demanding field. This episode is a heartfelt reminder of the importance of mental wellbeing, humor, and community.
Have you ever stopped to consider the psychological impact of constantly dealing with trauma on those who work tirelessly to help others? Melissa Kaiser, an established social worker and North Dakota’s first human trafficking navigator, takes us on a revealing journey into the world of compassion fatigue and secondary trauma, a world she navigates daily in her fight against human trafficking. Melissa unveils how incessantly being exposed to other's trauma can lead to a debilitating erosion of compassion, empathy, and trust, ultimately shifting one's worldview.
As we walk with Melissa through her experiences, she sheds light on her critical role in the Emancipation Nation Network. Her passion for education drives her to create a course aimed at equipping those in the anti-trafficking community with the necessary skills and knowledge to combat trafficking effectively. She emphasizes the importance of fostering open dialogues about compassion fatigue within teams.
Finally, we delve into the importance of also understanding secondary trauma and the need for deep self-care, reflection, and adjustment in such a demanding field. This episode is a heartfelt reminder of the importance of mental wellbeing, humor, and community.
You know the why human trafficking work is needed To fight for the freedom of modern day slaves. But love, passion, commitment isn't all you need to be an effective and successful anti-trafficking advocate. Learn the how. I'm Dr Celia Williamson, director of the Human Trafficking and Social Justice Institute at the University of Toledo. Welcome to the Emancipation Nation podcast, where I'll provide you with the latest and best methods, policy and practice discussed by experienced experts in the field, so that you can cut through the noise, save time and be about the work of saving lives.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the Emancipation Nation. I'm Dr Celia Williamson. This is episode 192. Today I have with me Melissa Kaiser. She was the first human trafficking navigator hired for Eastern North Dakota and was employed with the Bureau of Criminal Investigations as a victim witness specialist. Melissa assisted in creating the integrated victim services and law enforcement program for North Dakota and facilitated a multidisciplinary team for six years. And so today we have Melissa with us and I know she's very busy, but today she's going to be talking to us about compassion, fatigue and secondary trauma. So welcome, melissa. I'm so happy you could make time to be here.
Speaker 2:Thank you, happy to be here and happy to be involved with your conference and just all of the things you do on your network. I love the information and staying connected with everybody.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you are so busy, but you're busy doing the critical work and that part of that is really taking care of the providers, taking care of the caregivers. That's so important because we forget to take care of ourselves, we don't prioritize ourselves. So can you talk to us a little bit about compassion? Fatigue, I mean, what? Even? What is it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, it's interesting because I, like you said, I'm busy with now, kind of graduating on to what I say is like help the helpers. I've been a social worker for 12 years. I worked in various different areas of social work and when I was in North Dakota I worked with victims and survivors those six years too. But when I started really facilitating and working with these teams across the state is when I learned about compassion fatigue and what that means in secondary trauma, because I started to see the work impact not only social workers that I worked with for various years, but now I'm working with a team and I'm seeing, you know, the youth service providers are affected, law enforcement, our medical personnel, are prosecutors on our team and so I just thought like, wow, we are, you know, whether positive or negative, we are really impacted by the work. And so I dug into it more, I became certified in a few things and with that I really learned what we do as providers is often called everything burnout, like I'm so burnt out, and sometimes that's true, but what I have found with those of us in this type of work is it's more often compassion fatigue, secondary traumatic stress and or PTSD or post traumatic stress disorder.
Speaker 2:So really, the difference being that compassion fatigue is literally what it sounds like You're eroded of your compassion, your empathy is completely strained from constantly hearing about the trauma of others.
Speaker 2:And it's like we get into this work, we're really passionate, we're really excited about it, and then it gets kind of monotonous of constantly hearing all these horrific things that we start to get impatient and irritable and we kind of lose our passion and our empathy is so eroded we just have none left to give. So then unfortunately, our clients and the victims and survivors we work with suffer because we're not in a good place mentally, right, and now they're not getting the care they need, because they come to us and they can just see like we don't want to be there and that's what compassion fatigue does to us. It's not that we don't, but we're not in a space to provide that care to the best of our ability because we're not in a good space mentally, emotionally, ourselves. So in a really long nutshell, that's breaking down what just specifically compassion fatigue is and kind of why I wanted to get into it more and help again. Help the helper.
Speaker 1:And what's secondary trauma? Is that different than compassion fatigue?
Speaker 2:Yes. So secondary trauma is thinking about what happens over time in the work that we do, where now your worldview starts to shift. So maybe you start to actually have some bias or some stereotypes or you see the world differently. For example, working in trafficking for so long, I've also helped law enforcement for a long time and, as we all know, in this work 99% of the offenders are males and I've learned over time that I don't trust men and that's a really irrational. I know when I'm in a good space I can trust there are some safe, really great men in this world. But again, the secondary trauma is that worldview shift where now I have this nature of always questioning males, always questioning males when I see them with children.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, when I was getting a divorce I was in the work as well, and then trying to date again I found was really bleeding over into my work life too, because it was like how do I trust men? How do I know they're not addicted to porn? How do I know that they haven't purchased someone for sex? I just could not shut that off. And so that's really the difference.
Speaker 2:For an example of secondary trauma is those intrusive, invasive thoughts, your worldview shift. You just have those changes in how you see things and sometimes it can be positive in the sense of like it helps keep you safer because of your vigilance for the world, but it kind of turns into like hypervigilance, where you can't relax and some of those invasive, intrusive thoughts. As an example, I have a six month old daughter now and unfortunately, sometimes when I change her diaper I think about the things I've seen in my job and I know a colleague that had that same experience and so again, those intrusive, invasive thoughts and those types of moments that we don't always realize is also secondary trauma. So it's really just shifting the way we see things. And one more example, if it's relatable for people, is I played in a softball tournament once and I use this example all the time and it is a place where people really let their guard down. They have fun.
Speaker 2:After your games. You drink beer and I remember sitting down after my game and I cracked a beer with my team and I looked around because it's just a party of people and my first thought was how many girls are going to get raped here tonight? And that's a perfect example, unfortunately, of secondary trauma. It's that worldview shift of someone in a profession outside of this work would probably not be thinking that and so asking ourselves where is that happening internally? Because that can add to compassion, fatigue, that can add to burnout, but it could also cause PTSD if it continues to really impact our daily functioning.
Speaker 1:Wow, I've never heard I don't think such a clear explanation of each one of those and the differences between each one of those. And just thinking of my own experience as well, I could relate to that secondary trauma. I have a 7 and 1 half month old grandson who those are my first thoughts there you will not go to daycare, you will not. Everybody mails our potential perpetrators. Anybody is a potential sexual abuser. Until I rule you out. I mean. That is another good example of a tilted, slanted worldview Because, yeah, until I rule you out, you are ruled in, and so that is not a good way to look at the world.
Speaker 2:I know, and that's what's. I'm so glad you brought that up, because on one hand, like I said, sometimes it can be quote unquote good because you feel safe, or you're aware of the world differently than other people, or you know that just because someone seems safe doesn't mean they're safe. And to add to how relatable what you're saying is, my 6 month old is babysat in my home by her grandparents, because I too, with the daycare thing, it's just part of the work and how we've shifted. So, yes, you clearly relate, I'm sure in many other ways too. You could think of too just how over many years things impact you differently.
Speaker 1:And I think there are many listeners that probably are green or maybe they have a different example. But yes, that's exactly true, and if the listeners could see me today, they would know that I babysit my grandchild because you will not be babysat by anyone else.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because of the worldview, and so because of that some things have slipped and I get it Even in real. So it sort of gives us a little more empathy in two fronts that poor person like ourselves whose worldview has been slanted there's some stress with that and also we can have some empathy for that crass person who may be at our collaborative meeting, our team meeting, who is saying horrible things or has a disposition that's pretty nasty, and sometimes we don't have a lot of compassion for that person. We're like well, you should care about people and you don't care about people. So we have some feelings about you and instead of looking at, perhaps they did care, perhaps they gave it all and now they are suffering with compassion fatigue. And if we have, let's say, a colleague like that not only ourselves, but if we have a colleague like that, is there anything that we can do?
Speaker 2:I'm so glad you brought that up Because, like I said in the beginning, the multidisciplinary team is where I started noticing exactly what you just said. And yes, there are things we can do, I think, on a more personal level. If you see that in a meeting, do you have a relationship? Or is it worth it to establish a relationship with your team member to call them and say, hey, I noticed today maybe you were a little more cynical or negative or you weren't being as person-centered, trauma, informed as you usually are, but just checking in one-on-one or even grabbing coffee with them and saying let's just get together one-on-one and see how the work is going and just saying are you OK? I notice these things. I know you really care and are passionate about the work, but I didn't see that yesterday. But it's more important that I check in to make sure you're OK. However, I know you care about the work and your clients and so we have to be in a better place and, however you want to have that conversation, you know that person best.
Speaker 2:I think there's another way to look at it. Is it so crucial to be agents of change in our community? A lot of us, probably listening today, would agree with that Part of it is okay. Can we sit down with our team and talk about this concept and say, like, as a team, this is important and maybe let's also bring it back to our agencies? It's a normalized thing that we can just start to be comfortable talking about and recognizing where it's not so like, oh my God, what was wrong with so-and-so today, like that was not okay. Or a lot of times there is some toxicity in our work because we are burnt out and then instead of fixing it, it's kind of getting blameful and negative and frustrated with that person Not understanding there might be a lot more going on underneath. So my second thing is how can we be agents of change? How can, as a team, we normalize the conversation, and then that might bleed back into everyone's own agencies.
Speaker 2:So, as a facilitator, I used to talk about that in meetings, or I would send out resources to my team on human trafficking, but also I'd say, hey, here's something to focus on taking care of yourself too. So it's something that you can just organically add into that conversation. Vulnerability helps, maybe even coming to a meeting and saying, hey, I'm sorry, I was really struggling with how the works impacted me and I didn't interact well with so-and-so yesterday and I feel bad. They're a client. I would never want to do that.
Speaker 2:So even having those own moments to bring to your team so they understand like, oh, this is normal, I think reminding people that therapists have therapists, because we forget that even those of us in the work can get help and also need to process feelings and emotions and the things we struggle with, because we get compassionate fatigue, because we care, we're not, it's not we're doing something wrong, it's we care about people. So we have to assume that we're going to be impacted when they're not well and that's okay. So that was a very long-winded answer, but there's just so much we can do to normalize it within our team and within those one-on-one relationships we have.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love the idea of purposefully and intentionally holding space in the team meeting to discuss that, because you know we've been trained, socialized, to come to the meeting and be professional. But in your work you do care about what you do, so why not care enough to talk about it or to? I love the idea of pulling somebody aside, going to have coffee and just sharing space with them and allowing them to vent. Maybe you don't have the answer and I don't even know if you should have the answer, but allowing people to vent Once you understand your team.
Speaker 1:You know I have a team and we like to say you know, like, if I understand your heart, then what comes out of your mouth sometimes isn't pretty, but sometimes the ugliness needs to come out. It needs to come out among safe people. I understand your heart, I understand your intention, but I also understand that you're frustrated with this. You can't stand this person. You know, today I cannot take one more thing from this person and it's like it doesn't take away from the fact that you're in the work and we understand your heart, and so I think you know that the work that you do is so important and it's like you have to keep reminding people about that. So you're creating a course for us, actually, of the Emancipation Nation Network and online community and we're starting actual full courses to help people increase their skills, increase their knowledge, and so one of the courses that you're creating for us, can you talk about that for a minute?
Speaker 2:Yes, I'm so excited. I just finished my last recording yesterday and I just put a lot of time and effort into it because it's so important. And there's worksheet I hate the word worksheets, but there's, you know, for lack of better words kind of worksheets with each section of it too, so people can bring that back to their agencies or to their homes and just say, hey, let's just ponder these ideas or these activities. But I did one real quick overview I think it's a 30 minute overview of just what is, you know, burnout versus compassion, fatigue. You know all the stuff we're talking about.
Speaker 2:And then the next phase goes into a 90 minute introduction to the idea and what do we do, how do we take care of ourselves, what are some strategies? And then after that I have, I think, two other 40 minute ones. One is on individuals. So now, okay, now we can focus just internally. You know, what can we work on, what can we assess about ourselves and what can we do? And then the other one is on relationships not just your partner or your friends, that's also your family. So kind of, how is what we do every day impacting our relationships and what do we do about that? And then the third one it's a little over an hour is more on your organization, so how to make culture change within the organization. And then, if you're a leader, you know in a supervisor role, there's also some tidbits in there about how you, as a leader, should and can make changes within your organization. So in a nutshell, it's a. I think five videos and so many resources probably too many, but that's the goal. Is there something for everybody there?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think if you really care about the work, if you really wanna make a difference in people's lives, the way to do that is to take care of yourself, because you role model that, you mentor that If everybody sees you empty in your bucket all the time going home to some of the crazy people you live with and they're supposed to fill your bucket but they might be empty in your bucket as well you walk it around with empty buckets. I mean pretty soon you have nothing to give and you also mentor to the little ones that look up to you that they should do the same thing. So it's so important to take care of yourself.
Speaker 1:Now, on the network Emancipation Nation Network, you can go in there for free. There are phase one, we call it, where you can take a. You know, just watch a bunch of videos on critical topics for free. Phase two is gonna go a little bit more in depth still free, and really you'd be good. But if you go into phase three, those are full blown courses. We are going to charge you for those courses because we bring experts like Melissa to the table who use her time and energy and expertise to walk you hand in hand, teaching you how to take care of yourself in your workplace, at your home, just individually, and so those courses will be available for you if you're interested. Now, melissa, you do also a blog, so can you just talk about that?
Speaker 2:Yes, and I look forward to getting back into it, because since I've had my daughter six months ago, I maybe have wrote two blogs, but there's tons and tons on there.
Speaker 1:Good way to take care of yourself, by the way. Yes, right.
Speaker 2:I know, actually putting some boundaries in place. Who would have thought so? The blog is really a self-development blog. It's just concepts I've learned through social work as well as my job, things that just maybe we take for granted or we're not mindful of, or just terminology within the social work field that I'm like, wow, this is a helpful concept when you really break it down and I use a lot of personal examples, so it's just kind of food for thought.
Speaker 2:No blog is more than a five minute read. There's other sections on Happy Things Thursday where I just talk about 10 quick things you can read that hopefully brighten your day or make you smile, that you can be more mindful of. You know, it might be something as simple as like hitting all the green lights on your way to work right. It's just those little things we overlook that happen every day, that when we're having a rough day, maybe the next time something like that happens to you, you're like, oh yeah, that's right, that is really cool. So it kind of actually goes right into that compassion fatigue stuff, which is interesting because I started writing that blog before I even got into this, so it was kind of always there, just in a different way.
Speaker 1:That's so cool. What you know, what I love to do, my personal thing is I'll turn on TikTok for you know 10 minutes or whatever, and I'll just listen to a comedian say something crazy, and then I'll just giggle and laugh and then I'll just go into you know, my next important meeting or whatever. Yes, but it reminds me that, oh yes, you know everything. We take the issue seriously, but sometimes ourself. Let's not take ourselves so seriously and let's just enjoy some of the things that we can enjoy. So, melissa, where do people find this blog?
Speaker 2:So it's short for social work secrets and it's SWsecretsnet. And I also have a Facebook page. That's a link on the bottom. I have a link to all my social media as well, if you want updates on when those blogs are posted. So, and then I'll post funny memes on my social work Facebook page too.
Speaker 2:You know that I see on Instagram or whatever that are just very relatable but to your point, make you laugh a little bit at the work, and that's okay. My partner happens to be in law enforcement. I talk about that a lot in my phase three curriculum. And to your point about the comedy, I love that you said that. Who doesn't have time for a few minutes in between things just to help? You know, meetings are hard, cases are hard, and it just takes a breather away from that for a minute.
Speaker 2:So what we do at night is, of course, watch documentaries directly related to the type of work that we do, but then we're not checking out. We're always in work mode, and so that's what we do. If we can't find something to watch, and we know that that's what we're gonna end up doing, we're like stand up comedy. Stand up comedy, go to Netflix. I mean, there's so much on there and that's kind of our quick like nope, we're not doing that tonight, and switch in gears and, like you said, you can watch it for 10 minutes, you can watch it for three hours and it's just something that's relatable and it's easy to do.
Speaker 1:That's right, and it doesn't let you forget who you really are deep down inside, because some of the things that are so comical and so relatable and so real that this is somebody talking to you about real things, and so it can be funny, it can be disarming, it can be relaxing, and so, Melissa, people want to get a hold of you. Let's say they want to learn more or ask a question, or they want you to be a presenter, perhaps in their agency. Are you open to doing compassion, fatigue, secondary trauma type presentations in agencies?
Speaker 2:Yes, I do that a lot. I do it just as much as I do the human trafficking training and consulting. So that is absolutely something I do over Zoom. I travel in person, depending on when and how and where, and so I'm presenting I'm trying to think well, at the Dallas Crimes Against Children Conference, I'm presenting on person-centered, trauma-informed investigations. However, there's various ones throughout Texas. I'm presenting on compassion fatigue in the next few months and then I've presented for you at your conference on this topic several times too, and I will be in September again. So people can view a really short 30 minute one, two, if they would like to. So, yes, people can get a hold of me through my email, which is half my first name, half my last name, which is Melissa Kaiser. So it's Melchai M-E-L-K-A-I consulting at gmailcom. That would be the easiest.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I love that also that you have branched out and you have a consultant. I love to see social workers that become empowered and say I'm gonna offer my skills and talents under a consulting label. I like that as well. So how did you get to where you are in terms of consulting just for people who are out there and they think that they have to spend all their time in an agency or working for an institution?
Speaker 2:Yeah, great question. It happened in a way that, for me, pushed me to do it, which is what it took. So, to your point, I hope that people maybe hear something like this and feel like, oh, I can just do it, I don't need to be as pushed. But I was working in North Dakota in the human trafficking field with an agency and after being there for several years, I did other human trafficking work at a partnering agency and then the human trafficking task force in North Dakota had changed how they were hiring those of us in the work and so they said, hey, do you wanna come back and just consult under the task force, be your own boss, versus working for an agency, and I was terrified to do it. But the director is so good at empowering you and helping with your strengths In terms of leadership. She's just excellent and I've always appreciated her guidance because she's the one who really gave me the push I needed and she's like you can do this, it's great. So I did it through.
Speaker 2:The North Dakota task force is how I slowly started out doing it, and it's not as intimidating as people might think in terms of getting a consulting label under your name, getting up and running. If you have a good financial person to help you, it's cake. It's so much easier than you think. And then it's really about networking. So once I moved, I moved to Florida and was able to branch out more and just go to national conferences if I had some funding available to do that but also starting to present, using the people that had seen me present as a reference, because people know my work and they worked with me for various years.
Speaker 2:So once you can get out there and network and maybe you already have a excuse me, a plan for that people that are interested in consulting, maybe they kind of already know where they would start and do that. I mean you can even start your LLC on the side and slowly get into it until you build that confidence. So I will say it's worth it. It's a little stressful in terms of starting out, thinking like what do I do? Where do I go, but there's always people to help guide you that have done it before. I did it in the midst of moving and COVID and many other things in my personal life that were not in a good place and I was still able to get up and running no problem. So you can do it, that's for sure.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and I talking about taking care of yourself. Maybe for some of you, this is a good way to take care of yourself, to be able to share your gifts and talents with the world without having the bureaucracy and the stress of an agency or an institution. I mean, I started a podcast because someone said have you heard a podcast, what? And they showed me. I didn't even know how to listen to a podcast. So I started listening to a few podcasts and I thought, wow, I could do that. So I had no idea how to eat, what the equipment was, how to eat it. But that doesn't matter, because if you have learned your job, if you have learned, then you know how to learn. So it's not difficult. If somebody else is doing it, look over at them and say, man, if they're doing it, I certainly can do. So you know and consider it. You know. I think people a lot of times let fear Guide their lives and great passion for yourself guide your life.
Speaker 1:So, melissa, where do we expect to see you? Perhaps in the next three to five years?
Speaker 2:Well, my goal is to keep growing. I've been at this Probably about two years now. The first year I was still with the North Dakota Task Force as a consultant and for the last year so I've been on my own. So my goal is to keep getting my name out there and help the helpers however I can, and that for me, has been that. That transition has been so rewarding.
Speaker 2:People who say I don't necessarily know how to work with a victim or survivor of trafficking, or our team isn't maybe person-centered trauma informed, we don't know how to do an appropriate interview or investigation. So just being able to help the people doing the good work has been immensely rewarding. So my goal is to keep getting contracting gigs to help, and I do contract for secondary trauma. Sometimes an organization just says we need help. We're, you know it's kind of gotten really toxic here. We have a high turnover or something horrific just happened, you know, to a client we were working with and we don't really know how to come back from that. So there's just areas I love to help with and I just want to keep growing. I, my flexibility is great and Makes it easier to meet people where they're at. So hopefully you'll see me at more conferences in the future and just available on LinkedIn and wanting to Do a lot more spreading my blog and maybe even creating my own videos on LinkedIn and some of those things too. So just growth, that's the main goal.
Speaker 1:Yes, I love it, no fear. Just all about the growth and the love, and thank you so much, melissa, for the time that you shared with us just to, and congratulations on your baby. I did not know we had. Yes, well, you too yeah seven months and a lot of my time.
Speaker 2:I hear you because the important time.
Speaker 1:So yes, it is but thank you so much again and I'm sure we will talk again. And I just encourage people to go to your blog, maybe use it daily, this little five minutes, just to read something inspired, to get you grounded. So Do that.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me. I'll see you all at the conference this year.
Speaker 1:That was Melissa Kaiser and she did come to our 20th annual International Human Trafficking and Social Justice Conference. I recorded this right before the conference and Melissa's blog is at SW like social work SW secrets net. To get a hold of her is Mel Kai me L Ka I consulting dot com. So how important are these concepts? Compassion fatigue and I know we've seen people in our collaborative meetings when we've met with people and they just seem like they have lost their compassion and we don't think about compassion fatigue and we don't Think about them in empathetic ways and we don't think about reaching out to them and maybe we should. And secondary trauma Is that affecting your life? It certainly has altered my reality in various ways. So we know that we have to take care of ourselves, but when we think about self-care, we often think about a bubble bath or watching the game or whatever. But doing some deep self-care, looking at our Potential for compassion fatigue or, if we have compassion fatigue, secondary trauma Are we experiencing that? So how important are these concepts when it comes to living a happy and and stress-free or minimally stressful life?
Speaker 1:We talked about the Emancipation Nation Network and it actually, if you go to Google and type in Emancipation Nation Network. You can become a member for free. There are over 1200 Anti-trafficking advocates there. Once you get in there, there is a phase one that Offers you all kinds of free webinars to fill in the gaps of maybe what you may not know about human trafficking. Phase two goes a little more in depth in various areas that you might be interested in, and so there, if you look at module six in phase two, you'll see Melissa's webinar. It's called an introduction to compassion, fatigue and secondary traumatic stress. Go there, learn more About those two concepts. It may change your life.
Speaker 1:If you are interested, melissa has a course, a full course, to take you from beginning to end, to hold your hand through and Help you address Any compassion fatigue, secondary traumatic stress. The course is called the cost of caring how to enjoy life While balancing a high stress profession. Now that course is 399. Go there if you're interested in that course. You know you may be saying to yourself oh my gosh, 399, because you are again pushing your needs off to the side To take care of other people. But the more you take care of yourself, you not only mentor that to others, but you will stay in this type of work longer. So please just consider it until next time. The fight continues. Let's not just do something, let's do the best thing. If you like this episode of Emancipation Nation, please subscribe and I'll send you the weekly podcast. Until then, the fight continues.