Stress%20

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Stress Burnout in Prison

• Ellen Heuven

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Outline

• Why is well-being an important issue?
• Stress Burnout
• How common are stress and burnout?
• What are the causes of burnout?
• What to do about it?

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Why is well-being an important issue?

• Legal obligation
• Stress-complaints are the main cause for
  disability
• Psychological workload causes /-30 of the sick
  leave rate
• EU countries spend /- 10 of their GNP on
  stress-related complaints
• The problem is increasing
• Stress causes sick leave, reduction of motivation
  and flexibility, turnover and psychological and
  physical complaints

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Stress vs. Motivation
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Stress Process
Stressor
ST Stress
LT Stress
Disfunct
Coping
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Tired from work
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Burnout
Exhaustion
CHRONIC COMPLAINTS
Cynicism
NEGATIVE ATTITUDES
Personal Efficacy
WORK- RELATED
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How common are stress and burnout?

• Unclear extent of burnout among COs but
• More psychosomatic diseases
• High turnover, disability and absenteeism rates
• Similar to police officers. Low EE, high DP.
• More prevalent in treatment setting and among
  mid-career COs.

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What are the causes of burnout?

• Demanding social contacts
• Aggression
• Emotional labour
• Role problems
• Lack of social support
• High work load
• Routine
• Career development and training
• Working hours
• Social status

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Demanding social contacts

• Frequency contact inmates - burnout
• Unequal balance investments - rewards
• Over-involvement
• Source of rewards
• Suggestions
• Create openness about subject
• Avoid excessive time spend with inmates (i.e. job
  rotation)
• Interpersonal skills training

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Aggression

• Traumatic sensitive professionals
• Increasing aggression
• Not only severe forms of aggression
• Aggression training policy
• Suggestions
• Procedures and agreements about disciplinary
  measures, aftercare, training, registration,
  training

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Emotional Labour

• Managing emotions as part of the job
• Human vs.. disciplinary emotional expression
• Signal function emotions
• Suggestions
• Training
• Task-rotation and well-balanced working schedules

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Role Problems

• Guarding and treating
• Differences in approach between colleagues
• Humane approach Council of Europe
• Suggestions
• More treatment-oriented tasks and invoice vs.
  specialisation custody tasks
• Improvement of communication between COs

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Social Support

• Source of energy and stress buffer vs.
• Group loyalty and collegiality weakly developed
• Poor relationship between COs and
  management/supervisors
• Suggestions
• Working in teams
• Staff meetings
• Buddy-assistance newcomers
• Management development program
• Solid Information-system

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Work Load

• High workload general and rising problem
• Too few people have to do too much work in too
  little time
• Financial cutbacks, reduction of staff, high
  absenteeism rates
• Suggestions
• Hiring additional staff temporary replacement
• Time management

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Routine

• Repetitive nature of job causes stress among
  elderly low-skilled COs but
• problem for only small minority
• peoples work can never be routine

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Career Development

• Lack of structural career policy
• Veteran COs locked in careers
• Newcomers Mismatch career expectations and
  reality
• Suggestions
• Career policy PDP, performance appraisal, mentor
  system
• Criteria recruitment and through-flow

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Working hours

• 24-hours business, irregular shifts
• Complaints increase with age and job tenure
• Suggestions
• Reduction of working hours (i.e. part-time work,
  discouragement overwork, sabbatical leaves)
• Design healthy working schedules (i.e. forward
  rotation, reduction night shifts, mini-breaks)

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Social Status

• Prejudices
• Stigma disreputable job and marginal status
  source of stress and burnout
• Suggestions
• Clear task description
• Career management
• Developing relations with wider community

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What to do about burnout

• Strategies aimed at the individual
• Relaxation, RET, increase awarness, improve
  self-care, promoting healthy life-style
• Strategies aimed at prison-organisation
• Job-stress audit, legislation, medical care
• Preventive measures