Ongoing Continuing Education: A Source for Academic Community Resources
Considering this post and discussion about professional and academic communities, I thought that I would bring up another way of thinking about this. This next weekend is my Birthday, and among other things, it means I need to consider my licensure. In Washington State, I am a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker (LICSW). There is a requirement, like with many licenses, to participate in so many continuing education units. Last year I wrote about some of my strategies in keeping track of the continuing education I have to do every year (Campbell, 2019).
This last week, I spent some time doing some online training through NetCE (https://www.netce.com/ for continuing education online). This year with COVID-19, and just the business of everything, I found that I did not go to as many in-person training. I completed the online course for Vicarious Trauma and Resilience by Berthold (2020) this last week. I have been heavily researching resilience and trauma over the previous two years, but this training exposed a couple of new concepts.
The training provides new research around resilience and the concept of vicarious resilience (Hernandez et al., 2017; Engstrom et al., 2018). While I have found many articles discussing vicarious trauma or what is sometimes referred to as secondary trauma (see as an example Pickens & Tschopp, 2017), this was the first description and consideration that I have had in the concept of vicarious resilience. Another new theme or narrative that I came across was that of Trauma Stewardship. I positively relate to this concept described in Lipsky and Burk (2009) book and which is now added to my list of resources I want to explore and consider. Berthhold (2020) describes, “trauma stewards are called upon to uphold the highest standards of professionalism, integrity, and ethics at all times in their work with survivors who have entrusted them to safeguard their deeply painful and personal stories and their lives” (p 42).
Participating in training consistently, as a part of a professional network such as having licensure, seems to be a highly useful way to stay professionally connected and up to date with relevant information. While this isn’t the most specific description of a professional organization, I can say that for me, one place to look is at my professional accreditation body. Any training I complete needs to be accredited through the NASW (National Association of Social Workers - https://www.socialworkers.org) or the ASWB (Associated Social Work Boards - https://www.aswb.org). Last year I also wrote about the landscape of resilience research (Campbell, 2019b). For any fellow students looking for specific journals, publications related to resilience, that might also be a helpful resource.
Reference
Berthold, S. M. (2020). NetCE 15 hour course #96623 - Vicarious trauma and resilience. https://www.netce.com/2029/Course_96623.pdf
Campbell, J (2019a, Oct 14) Creation of an annual report for CEUs for my LICSW. https://jacobrcampbell.com/blog/2019/10/creation-of-annual-report-for-ceus-for-licsw/
Campbell, J (2019b, Nov 8) My dissertation: Foundational aspects of resilience. https://jacobrcampbell.com/resources/essays/foundational-aspects-of-resilience/
Engstrom, D., Hernandez, P., & Gangsei, D. (2008). Vicarious resilience: A qualitative investigation into its description. Traumatology, 14(3), 13-21. https://doi.org/10.1177/1534765608319323
Hernandez, P., Gangsei, D., & Engstrom, D. (2007). Vicarious resilience: A new concept in work with those who survive trauma. Family Process, 46(2), 229-241. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1545-5300.2007.00206.x
Lipsky, L. van D., & Burk, C. (2009). Trauma stewardship: An everyday guide to caring for self while caring for others (1st ed). Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Pickens, I. B., & Tschopp, N. (2017). Trauma-informed classrooms (p. 32). National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges. https://www.ncjfcj.org/publications/trauma-informed-classrooms/
Author Note
The following essay was originally posted to the online discussion forum for TSD 6526 - Ecology of Ideas as a part of my Ph.D. Studies in Transformative Studies at the California Institute of Integral Studies.