YOU: Working overseas can be both hugely rewarding and can also be isolating and challenging. Being separated from family, loved ones, and your familiar environments and routines can surface previously well-managed, though sometimes faulty, coping mechanisms that, when revealed under such pressures, can have a profound impact on your working relationships, and effectiveness in your field of work while in-country.
For me, in-country work has been a learned experience over 30 years in which I have been informed and equipped, while on mission and development work. Such placements and collaborations have been with various charities including One Life International, Tearfund, and Amos Trust, amongst others, including within conflict and post-conflict countries, such as Liberia, Burundi, and Colombia.
So I get, that sometimes, you may feel incongruent with how you are doing and feeling as to how you report to your line manager or even those you are working with in-country. There can be the sense or even expectation that one needs to keep your ‘game face’ on all the time. Maybe your feelings are too personal, or awkward or you just don’t understand why you are struggling as you are or feel the way you do.
That’s maybe when you could benefit from my support with Clinical Supervision or Therapeutic Coaching. From someone who is one removed and can bring an unbiased, objective, and qualified therapeutic view, with professional and lived experience, to walk with you, even if just for a season. To be a sounding board, to help you understand why you are feeling the way, unpick the threads of your thoughts, the impact they may be having on you mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and maybe even physically, find resolution, and build resilience.
If this sounds like you, it would be a pleasure to hear from you and offer you a free 30-minute discussion so we can discuss your needs.
Sending Organisation: The core of Supervision, and Therapeutic Coaching is a process of professional learning and development, cognitively, emotionally, spiritually, and even physically. These essential supportive attributes enable your staff member or small team to deal with and navigate personal and team problems that might adversely impact their individual or collective work performance, health, and their well-being.
Supervision and Therapeutic Coaching enables individuals and small teams to reflect on and develop their knowledge, skills, competence, and resilience through agreed and regular objective support from another registered professional who has ‘walked the talk’. These processes are further enhanced through the integration of Self – Organised Learning, a proven methodology of learning to learn, all of which can form part of your charity’s EAP (Employee Assistance Programme) while they are overseas.
Healthy and well-managed reorientation on returning home from work overseas can be just as important as becoming well-grounded and established in-country. There can be experiences, emotions, memories, and even a sense of loss of purpose, security, self-worth, and significance felt when repatriation occurs. Helping your staff reorientate well and continue to grow in themselves and their professional development is an important part of both an employer’s good and ethical practice but also aids the awareness of staff being valued and their subsequent longer-term retention.
The Trellis Practice is here to offer your charity bespoke services that meet your needs and those of your employees, remotely, in-country, or in a blended model, just as you may require.
Want to know more and discuss your requirements? It would be a pleasure to hear from you.