ASHAAA Developed a Burnout Prevention Toolkit for Advocacy Orgs!
With the spike in anti-Asian hate in recent years, AANHPI-focused social justice organizations are working more diligently than ever to prevent and address the consequences of racism experienced by our community. Many friends and colleagues in social justice work feel tired, overwhelmed, and even hopeless - all common signs of burnout.
Burnout is defined as “a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed” in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11). Although views on its definition and relevant contexts have not been unanimous (Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care, 2020), burnout is becoming a well-known phenomenon during the pandemic. Living with constant excessive stress could have severe personal and professional negative effects. For example, burnout is linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular diseases (Melamed et al., 2006) and all-cause mortality (Ahola et al., 2010). Organizations with burnt-out employees may also see lower morale, employee satisfaction, retention rate, and productivity.
In October of 2021, ASHAAA was generously awarded a $10,000 grant by the National Council of Asian Pacific Americans (NCAPA), a coalition of 38 national Asian Pacific American organizations, and the Asian American Psychological Association (AAPA) to create a toolkit for managers within NCAPA member organizations to address employee burnout. We envisioned something portable and accessible (can be printed out or read on most electronic devices), easy to understand, and actionable. We consulted many different sources, such as peer-reviewed scholarly articles, articles written for the public and fact-checked by professionals, and blog posts written by and for advocates (see the toolkit’s “References” section for all the sources that made it into the toolkit). The final toolkit contains five sections: 1) identifying burnout; 2) using the toolkit with cultural humility; 3) addressing interpersonal-level causes of burnout; 4) addressing organizational-level causes of burnout; and 5) supporting employees in “panic mode”.
On March 1, 2022, Shujianing presented our toolkit to the Executive Directors of NCAPA’s member organizations. We are excited to hear feedback and are so grateful for the opportunity to collaborate with NCAPA and AAPA! We also want to give a special shoutout to Dr. Matthew Mock, who served as an informal advisor on this project and was our biggest cheerleader.
If you are interested in accessing the toolkit, it is open access and can be downloaded by clicking the button below. Please let us know any feedback or questions you have by contacting team@ashaaa.org. Research on burnout within the AANHPI community is limited, so your thoughts will be tremendously helpful in informing any updates we make to the toolkit. We will also be working on a version that is intended for individuals’ own use, so subscribe at the bottom of this page and stay updated on that progress!
*Suggested citation: Li, S., Qu, V., Leclair, T., & Liu, V. (n.d.). Advocate Burnout Toolkit. A Safe Haven for Asians and Asian Americans. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5e7bb5fcc33bd7355a99d633/t/623755d3e5909a1d79dcc668/1647793620786/ASHAAA+Toolkit_With+Resources+and+References.pdf
*Disclaimer: Burnout in organizations is complicated and this toolkit is not designed to completely eliminate burnout. The list of contributing factors and strategies addressing burnout identified in this toolkit is not exhaustive and its applicability could vary depending on context. Therefore, the toolkit should be used at individuals’ and organizations’ discretion.
References used in this blog post:
Ahola, K., Väänänen, A., Koskinen, A., Kouvonen, A., & Shirom, A. (2010). Burnout as a predictor of all-cause mortality among industrial employees: a 10-year prospective register-linkage study. Journal of psychosomatic research, 69(1), 51–57. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychores.2010.01.002
Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care. (2020, June 18). Depression: What is burnout?. National Center for Biotechnology Information. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK279286/
World Health Organization. (2019). International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (11th ed.). https://icd.who.int/en
Melamed, S., Shirom, A., Toker, S., Berliner, S., & Shapira, I. (2006). Burnout and risk of cardiovascular disease: evidence, possible causal paths, and promising research directions. Psychological bulletin, 132(3), 327–353. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.132.3.327
