The last three posts in this series covered strategies for managing your time, organizing and prioritizing your work, and taking charge of your communication and your calendar. Now, in this final installment of this series, let’s think about how you take care of you!
We have all made this suggestion to the families we serve at one time or another because we know that we must first take care of ourselves before we can be any good to anyone else. Now it is time to focus in on how to practice this yourself and here is the final tip and a few resources to help you get started:
Tip #10: Take Care of You!!!!!!
Center for Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation provides relaxation and stress reduction resources. Below you will find a few examples of some resources found on their website:
- Stress Log Template (PDF, New Window)
- Talk Back to Your Unhelpful Thoughts (PDF, New Window)
- Taking Care of Ourselves (PDF, New Window)
- Mental Health Consultants Notes (PDF, New Window)
- Relaxation Exercises
Managing the Environment – The following resources are tools to help service coordinators manage their environment so they can successfully accomplish the many tasks they are working on in the manner that works best for them:
- We Could Learn a LOT from Crayons (PDF, New Window)
- Quiet Zone (PDF, New Window)
- Temporary Time Out (PDF, New Window)
Three Building Blocks of Reflective Supervision – ZERO TO THREE’s work over the last quarter-century has found that reflective supervision promotes and supports the development of a relationship-based organization. This approach expands on the idea that supervision is a context for learning and professional development. The three building blocks of reflective supervision-reflection, collaboration, and regularity-are outlined in this resource.
The work you do with infants, toddlers, and families is very important and can be very demanding at times. Remember to build in enough time for you to accomplish each important activity that accompanies your role and responsibilities with the numerous families you serve each and every day!
What strategies do you use to make sure you take care of yourself first? Have you used any of these resources? If so, which ones are your favorites?
To read other posts in this series, click below:
Part I (getting organized and prioritizing your work)
Part III (taking charge of your communication)
Sarah Nichols is an Early Intervention Consultant for the Early Intervention Training Program at the University of Illinois (formerly the Illinois Early Intervention Training Program). She has been working in the field of Early Intervention since the year 2000. She was a service coordinator for seven years and she has been a training consultant for the Early Intervention Training Program in Illinois since 2002. Sarah assists in the development of web-based learning opportunities, manages the Early Intervention Training Program website, facilitates state and national webinars, and develops and manages online workspaces for early interventionists, training consultants, and members of the Early Intervention-Early Childhood Professional Development Community of Practice (EI-EC PD CoP). Sarah is a member of the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) and the Division of Early Childhood (DEC) and she is currently a Co-Leader for the DEC Professional Development Special Interest Group (DEC PD SIG) .
