Development of leadership qualities and prevention of the burnout effect in social workers

From 3 to 17 July 2017, thirty five activists and social workers of NGOs providing services for vulnerable to HIV groups visited “Nash Put’”(Our Way) summer therapeutic tent camp in the Poltava region. The camp was organized by the Poltava civic organization “Kviten (April) Club” in cooperation with the Network of PLWH.

A number of training events in the camp were conducted for representatives of local NGOs from Kyiv, Poltava, Stakhanov (Luhansk region), Kherson, Vinnitsa, Ivano-Frankivsk, Cherkassy, Zhytomyr, Berdichev (Zhytomyr region), and Dnipro. They took part in the training “Improving the Performance of Leaders through Developing Their Own Leadership Qualities and Skills to Create a Goal-Oriented Team.” The trainer was a practicing psychologist and supervisor A. Tymoshenko. The participants also attended the training “Art Therapy as a Method of Preventing Emotional Burnout of Leaders Working in the Social Sphere” held by the art therapist G. Anichina.

Professional experience of trainers, well-chosen topics for discussion, unusual form of training in the open air, lack of mobile communications, and ordinary home comforts rallied attendees from different parts of Ukraine and made it possible to perceive information more effectively.

Such methods of conducting trainings are one of the forms of burnout prevention not only for leaders but also for social workers who provide services for vulnerable to HIV communities.