Case Study
Zoo
BACKGROUND
CHALLENGES
Emotional impact of animal illness and death
Team dynamics
Conflicts with management
Staff emotionally impacted by role
We were asked to deliver training to a zoo in the midlands The main difficulties within the teams were issues with team dynamics, emotional impact of animal illness and deaths as well as staff conflict with management. Overall Management were apprehensive about their team as they were beginning to demonstrate many of the symptoms of Compassion Fatigue and this was affecting the care they were delivering as well as morale.
Before the training, all staff were given a pre-course questionnaire designed to assess their level of Compassion Fatigue.
PRE COURSE
FEEDBACK
“Great speakers and interesting content. I learned things I did not previously know and that will really help me cope with the difficulties of my role. Thank you!”
RESULTS
Increased retention
Improvement within team dynamics
Increased morale
Improvements to wellbeing support
The questionnaire identified that staff were experiencing the emotional impact of their roles, often feeling anxious, irritable, withdrawn or emotionally shut down. The results also highlighted that staff were regularly working longer hours than they were being paid for, felt guilty if they were off sick and some were already considering finding other employment that was less stressful.
POST COURSE
The immediate feedback from all was very positive with learners commenting that the content was relevant and impactful. They felt they were given proactive tools and strategies to use to care for their emotional well-being as well as the knowledge that what they were feeling was normal.
The post-course questionnaire results demonstrate that before the training very few learners knew about Compassion Fatigue or Vicarious trauma, but most of them recognised the symptoms in
themselves and their colleagues.
All the staff who attended said that the training was a positive experience for them and their team and has helped them cope better with their work. Their manager has implemented some of the suggestions that they made during the days which has improved morale. They all felt that the training had been a positive initiative and that ongoing training would be beneficial.