Self Care and Wellbeing: A Practical Guide for Health and Social Care (FutureLearn)

Through necessity, frontline workers and students have been required to accept greater levels of responsibility – leading to an increase in stress and physical, mental, and emotional fatigue and exhaustion.

On this three-week course, we will introduce you to a range of self care and mindfulness practices designed to improve your stress management and overall wellbeing.

Acknowledge the impact of cumulative trauma on health and wellbeing

The first step in dealing with the effects of traumatic situations on your mental health is to acknowledge them. The course starts by showing you how to do just that.

You’ll learn to use a range of self-awareness tools, and be guided through exercises that allow you to recognise the challenges you are experiencing so that they feel less overwhelming.

Put mindfulness and self-compassion into practice

Once you acknowledge the effects of stress and trauma, you’ll be ready to learn the self care techniques that can help you to deal with them.

You will explore the current and evolving principles of self-compassion and mindfulness, which you can start to apply practically in your daily life.

By the end of this course, you’ll have the knowledge and skills of self-compassion and kindness to meet your emotional needs, and manage them effectively as they change.

Develop a toolkit of daily practices

You will gain the most benefit through daily repetition of the practices in this course. We will lay the groundwork in the materials, which we hope you will use daily to suit your needs.

We are confident you will feel increasingly able, and willing, to invest your time as your experiences of self care develop.

Syllabus

Week 1: Daily Practices

Week 2: Responding to Crises

Week 3: Dealing with the Aftermath

Learning on this course

You can take this self-guided course and learn at your own pace. On every step of the course you can meet other learners, share your ideas and join in with active discussions in the comments.
What will you achieve?

By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...

- Reflect on the omnipresence and ubiquity of cumulative trauma and crisis events in healthcare.

- Apply the current and evolving principles of mindful and compassionate self care in practice.

- Practise different forms of self care as required to meet sensitively each stage of traumatic experiences.
Who is the course for?

This course is designed for students, social workers, and healthcare professionals wanting to look after their mental health. Anyone interested in improving their overall wellbeing or seeking support with managing extreme stress will also find it invaluable.