Is it Wellness or Well-being?
Contributing Author: Kirsten H. Pabst, NDAA Well-being Task Force Chair
Many organizations have jumped onto the wellness bandwagon and, to their credit, initiated “wellness” programs. Others have rolled out “well-being” programs. What is the difference? Are the terms interchangeable? Not really. Let us look at them.
Wellness is generally applicable to a person’s physical health. Well-being is broader than that. In addition to physical health, the term well-being also encompasses other significant areas of our lives including mental and emotional health, financial health, spiritual well-being, social well-being, and career fulfillment (source, see below.)
While wellness is the primary responsibility of the employee, well-being is best accomplished when employers provide adequate opportunity for well-being — a plausible work environment. When organizations offer well-being programs — and workers seize the opportunities therein — everyone benefits. Employers who offer comprehensive well-being programs report higher productivity, better results, and less adverse medical and emotional stress amongst workers (Id.)
Common Themes
In promoting the well-being of our larger prosecution family, we will be emphasizing the importance of addressing secondary trauma — through education, prevention, and response — but also incorporating resiliency tools to keep us thriving physically, mentally, socially, financially, professionally and spiritually. For our purposes, spirituality is defined outside of a religious context but rather a reference to an individual’s belief or connection to something greater than oneself.
You will see some common themes developing throughout this project:
- Stress adversity is an unavoidable reality in our world, but we can control our responses to such challenges.
- People can learn and practice resiliency skills to prevent destruction caused by secondary trauma and, in fact, use this stress as an impetus for personal and professional growth.
- Self-care is important, but it is not enough.
- Leaders must recognize their responsibility for employees’ well-being and provide sustainable work environments, teach resiliency skills, and promote professional and personal growth of employees.
We have come a long way in the past few years in recognizing that the status quo — working prosecution team members (literally) to death, addiction, and disease — is neither healthy nor sustainable. Our new Task Force is committed to offering tools to help all prosecution team members achieve physical, mental, emotional, financial, spiritual, and social well-being. We are similarly committed to assisting prosecution team leaders in providing the work environment to accomplish that.
Kirsten Pabst is the Chair of NDAA’s Well-being Task Force, serves on the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors, and is serving her second term as the elected prosecutor for Missoula County, Montana.
Resource:
Reducing Compassion Fatigue, Secondary Trauma and Burnout, A Trauma-Sensitive Workbook, by William Steele, is a great resource for leaders of organizations to learn about implementing a sustainable work environment.
