Care and Support Mental Health Resources

Supporting Care & Support Workers

The mental health and wellbeing of the care workforce has been exacerbated as a result of the COVID pandemic, leading to high rates of stress, burnout and mental health challenges for workers.

HSSO has recognised this and partnered with Phoenix Australia to deliver a suite of visual products which aims to raise awareness and help support the wellbeing of workers in the aged care and disability sectors as well as introduce key concepts of trauma-informed care. The resources were developed using a co-design process with representatives from the sector participating in a series of consultation sessions to ensure they’re a true reflection of the issues experienced by the sector.

Introducing Trauma Informed Care Concepts

The resources provide key messages related to individual and team factors that impact on employee wellbeing, describe best practice approaches to managing workplace stress, including the impacts of working with trauma and grief impacted people.

This is particularly important because the majority of care recipients accessing residential and home care or disability support will have experienced trauma and have had to manage issues related to loss and grief. Direct trauma exposure, such as occupational violence and aggression is also common in caring and health related industries.

The resources also provide practical examples of trauma informed practice and its benefits to increase awareness and motivation to implement trauma informed care. With trauma-informed practices, research demonstrates that many of these practices are an important part of protecting the mental health of workers in frontline roles.

Accessing The Resources

These resources have been contextualised and developed specifically for the three sectors  – Residential Care, Home Care and Disability Support. In addition, there are specific resources aimed at frontline workers and for staff with supervisory/management duties.

Below are the links to the content for each of the sectors. Access to these resources is free and we encourage the downloading and sharing of the content with colleagues and within organisations more broadly.

Residential Care

Home Care

Disability Support

Focus On : Webinar Series

To support the release of these resources, the HSSO in partnership with Phoenix Australia have developed a two part webinar series called Focus On. The series has been created with trusted experts in wellbeing and trauma-informed care and brings you the latest information and helpful resources.

The first webinar, titled Supporting trauma-informed practice and worker wellbeing was held in March 2023. A recording of this webinar can be found below.

The second webinar, titled Trauma-informed Care in practice was held in April 2023. This webinar is also found below.