Discussing Ways of Dealing with Stress - Essay Example

At the age of 18, I started working as a paraprofessional at a public high school and was the youngest among the employees. I was energetic and enthusiastic and assisted other teachers in the special education department. Dealing with different departments, different clients and different situations led to a lot of stress-causing severe burnout. This was when I realized I had to communicate this to my supervisor. (Hughes & Wearing, 1996).Being the youngest and more knowledgeable than the other paraprofessionals, my supervisor involved me in most of the discussions, and all difficult-to-handle situations were assigned to me.

I realized that the other paraprofessionals hardly had clients to deal with, either due to lack of training or lack of expertise. My discussion with the supervisor involved different ways to deal with the stress I faced; this resulted in a decision to have meetings between the professionals and paraprofessionals at least once a week, which allowed us to discuss the cases; this exercise was meant to improve knowledge and confidence levels in the other paraprofessionals. (Faberow, 1999).Better communication and good supervisory arrangements proved to be important to deal with stress.

Sharing knowledge, keeping the entire team updated on the new developments regarding the clients, listening to their viewpoints, and responding to what they had to say helped us in a better understanding of the cases. This also led to an equal division of work within the team. These steps helped me in reducing the stress that was caused due to heavy workload. Better supervisory guidance also helped in handling cases with a potential threat of physical or verbal abuse to the workers with much more confidence.

These were the basic and important practices used in managing stress as they reduced the workload with the assistance of other professional human service workers.