Social Work Field Observation Report
I attended a session of the Child Abuse Conference on Thursday morning at 8:45 called “JAYC Foundation: Managing the Stress of Traumatic Cases.” The presenters included Dr. Rebecca Bailey, Cynthia Psaila, and Jaycee Dugard herself. This seminar was all about knowing what you yourself can handle when working a case. It was geared more towards those viewing in the social work field, since both of the speakers were in the social work business themselves. A little bit of background on Dr. Rebecca Bailey – she was the woman who took on Jaycee Dugard after her 18-year kidnapping. Cynthia only recently (within the last 5 years) came into Rebecca Bailey’s practice and became part of her social work team.
One of the main topics of this seminar was
knowing what and how much you can handle. Dr. Bailey stressed that if you feel like you are in a situation bigger than you can handle, call and consult someone with more experience in the field or someone who has had a similar situation. It is always better to ask for help then to handle a case incorrectly. Dr. Bailey used a great analogy, in my mind, when she talked about oxygen masks in the airplane. When you fly in an airplane, the flight attendant tells you before taking off that in case of an emergency, when the oxygen masks deploy from the ceiling, you should first put your own on, then go help someone else put theirs on. This is so you take care of yourself and then take care of others. If for some reason you turn and help someone before you help yourself, it can be detrimental for your health. The same applies when working a case. If you are working a traumatic case and don’t take care of yourself first, you could end up missing things that you wouldn’t otherwise miss. They stressed that even if you haven’t eaten recently, haven’t been drinking enough water, or missed your workout, that could mess up your body enough that you are fatigued and are missing key information.
Dr. Bailey also spoke about how taking on an especially traumatic case is like juggling glass balls. Each person involved in the case is a glass ball. In the Jaycee Dugard case, Jaycee was a glass ball, so was her family, so was the media, and so on and so forth. When Dr. Bailey began juggling so many of these “glass balls,” she had to decide which was most important, and which was the most fragile. The others could be dropped and cracked or even broken, but the most fragile and important, Jaycee, was the main focus. I feel like this can be applied to law enforcement as well. The most important glass ball in law enforcement is the victim and justice for the wrong done against them.
All in all, I really enjoyed the sessions I attended, and one quote really struck me and has stayed with me. “You don’t have to forgive, you don’t have to forget, but you HAVE to have compassion.” This works for those pursuing careers in social work, in law enforcement, in legal studies, etc. No matter what horrible cases get thrown your way, you have to remember that it is important to have compassion because when the compassion is stripped away, your career in the caring profession is over.
One of the main topics of this seminar was
knowing what and how much you can handle. Dr. Bailey stressed that if you feel like you are in a situation bigger than you can handle, call and consult someone with more experience in the field or someone who has had a similar situation. It is always better to ask for help then to handle a case incorrectly. Dr. Bailey used a great analogy, in my mind, when she talked about oxygen masks in the airplane. When you fly in an airplane, the flight attendant tells you before taking off that in case of an emergency, when the oxygen masks deploy from the ceiling, you should first put your own on, then go help someone else put theirs on. This is so you take care of yourself and then take care of others. If for some reason you turn and help someone before you help yourself, it can be detrimental for your health. The same applies when working a case. If you are working a traumatic case and don’t take care of yourself first, you could end up missing things that you wouldn’t otherwise miss. They stressed that even if you haven’t eaten recently, haven’t been drinking enough water, or missed your workout, that could mess up your body enough that you are fatigued and are missing key information.
Dr. Bailey also spoke about how taking on an especially traumatic case is like juggling glass balls. Each person involved in the case is a glass ball. In the Jaycee Dugard case, Jaycee was a glass ball, so was her family, so was the media, and so on and so forth. When Dr. Bailey began juggling so many of these “glass balls,” she had to decide which was most important, and which was the most fragile. The others could be dropped and cracked or even broken, but the most fragile and important, Jaycee, was the main focus. I feel like this can be applied to law enforcement as well. The most important glass ball in law enforcement is the victim and justice for the wrong done against them.
All in all, I really enjoyed the sessions I attended, and one quote really struck me and has stayed with me. “You don’t have to forgive, you don’t have to forget, but you HAVE to have compassion.” This works for those pursuing careers in social work, in law enforcement, in legal studies, etc. No matter what horrible cases get thrown your way, you have to remember that it is important to have compassion because when the compassion is stripped away, your career in the caring profession is over.