An Essential Trauma-Informed Practice For All Professions
We talk a lot about the importance of personal boundaries but how often are you assessing, communicating and leading within your professional boundaries? In today’s episode, Katie is discussing the topic of setting professional boundaries and how it is an essential trauma-informed practice. You need to be able to understand your capacity as a professional in order to set those boundaries. This episode is full of helpful information to better understand what your professional boundaries (aka scope of practice) are and includes steps in which you can take to set professional boundaries. This is a must listen episode for anyone who finds themselves wanting to be able to support people in their role without overstepping or possibly causing harm.
Resources Mentioned In This Episode:
Show Transcript:
Katie Kurtz (she/her): Hi everyone and welcome back to A Trauma-Informed Future Podcast, I'm your host, Katie Kurtz. And today I wanted to talk about a really common topic. It's definitely become far more popular over the years. As we began to see an increase in shared language and understanding and the need for personal boundaries. Boundaries are a big topic. You are probably familiar with on how to protect your energy and ask for what you need and honor your limits. And that may be within, your relationship with yourself, your partnerships with friendships, with family.
Boundaries are an incredible practice and they're only placed to serve you and they're also really sticky. And how we create boundaries to support ourselves our capacity and the relationships that we have them placed in. But how often are you thinking about and talking about your professional boundaries?
So in today's episode, I wanted to talk about one of my favorite topics, which are professional boundaries or what I like to call our scope of practice. We're going to discuss what our scope of practice is, why this is so important and how asking you and inviting you to consider how you're integrating this key trauma informed practice.
I'm also really excited to share that if you're interested in this topic, you really want to focus on prioritizing setting your professional boundaries. I am offering a new workshop on Tuesday, October 17th. At 12:00 PM Eastern standard time. Yes, this will be recorded. It's a 60 minute virtual workshop where I will be walking you through my method and framework for setting professional boundaries and how to create your scope of practice and effectively communicate it and confidently lead within it. Everyone who attends will get , a free bonus copy of the, Know Your Scope Toolkit. This is a template for how to determine your scope of practice, to write out your scope of practice and then again, effective communicated and competently lead within it to take out any of the guesswork and to ensure that you're prioritizing not just the safety of the people you work with, but also yourself. And so this workshop again, will be held on October 17th, 12:00 PM. Eastern standard time will be recorded if you can't join us live. I'd love to have you join us. The information for that can be found at katie-kurtz.com/workshops. That's katie-kurtz.com/workshops.
This podcast episode, I'm going to introduce us to this topic, but again, if you want an actionable integrative way to actually create and set and confidently lead within your professional boundaries in a way that promotes safety builds trust and center's integrity, then I really encourage you to join me for that workshop. So one of the most important components of trauma informed care is setting professional boundaries. Now I've talked about this before and it bears repeating that trauma-informed care is an incredibly boundaried practice.
It really is about honoring boundaries for the individuals you're providing this approach to, but also for yourself, remember, our humanity is included in this approach. And so if we're thinking about how our humanity is included in trauma informed care, we really need to look at our professional boundaries because our professional boundaries are an expression of your capacity being how much you can hold your ability to receive your ability to produce something. And this can of course, apply to your personal capacity, but also your collective capacity in case you are a part of a company or team. So professional boundaries really communicate to others where you begin and where you end when it comes to your professional roles and responsibilities.
Now, this is one of the first skill set that I teach in integrative trauma informed care, because this is where we really ensure that the approach can be inclusive for all professionals. One of the things I often see with people who are introduced to trauma informed care or unsure, if it applies to them, is first, this myth that trauma-informed care is a clinical approach, which if you listened to this podcast so far, it should be clear that it is absolutely not a clinical approach. It's an approach available to us all. But the next thing, people get confused by is well, I don't work with trauma. Trauma is not a part of my profession or my everyday vernacular or my conversations. So why would I adopt this approach?
The way I teach, which is an integrative trauma informed care model. I always like to begin with shared language and understanding and what you've learned from this podcast, whether you have listened to the previous episode, or again, jump back to season one. And those first four episodes is that trauma is our response to events and environments that are beyond our capacity to cope with and disconnect us from a felt sense of safety and security and stability.
And by creating a shared language and understanding around trauma it expands our understanding that this isn't just some people it's all of us. And we live in cultures and system that perpetuate and are designed to, and create events and environments in which trauma and stress thrive. So when we have an expanded understanding of trauma and stress, we then are able to place ourselves and see ourselves as to why it would be pertinent. And I dare say it's absolutely imperative that people adopt this approach. But the next question is will, how do I do that in a way that's applicable to me.
That is why the next thing I always teach people is how to know your scope of practice. And a scope of practice can sound really formal. And it's typically a term utilized within the healthcare field. However, a scope of practice in simple terms means our professional boundaries. Our professional boundaries are similar to our personal boundaries, except it's very specific to our profession, our roles, our responsibilities, and sometimes these professional boundaries are outlined by a regulatory board.
If we hold any type of licensure or credentials, and if we don't, it's either established through best practices or standards within our industry. And that also takes into account our values, our ethos, our integrity, our competencies, our skill sets, et cetera. Why I am so passionate about our scope of practice is because it helps us create a specific boundary and then how we can apply trauma and from care within that boundary in the first few episodes of this podcast, if we think all the way back to episodes, one through four, I talk and introduce the trauma competency framework, which is the framework that I developed and teach. It's a scaffolded learning approach. To show how we can create an inclusive and adaptable competency process for people.
Again, based on their scope of practice, we would never have somebody within copywriting or marketing become trauma responsive because. Their job isn't to respond to trauma or address trauma heal trauma. Their job is to write, copy and market within their profession. So we want to be sure that copywriters and marketers, just for example, have an idea of where to find themselves within trauma competency framework, where that may be is awareness, mindfulness or informed, and then wherever they land, they find and build their skillset, their toolbox, and then apply that within their scope of practice.
So again, this isn't me saying everyone's becoming social workers and therapists. Absolutely not. Because that would be stepping outside. Outside their professional boundary. Our professional boundaries are so key to understand because they're, bi-directional, it's not just you setting up limits or creating walls around you and your profession. Professional boundaries are collaborative in nature because they're being set by you. The professional based on really knowing and understanding your personal skills, education, training competencies, your roles, responsibilities, credentials, et cetera. But then communicating it and being in collaboration with the people you're in relationship with in your professional setting. You need to be able to understand your capacity as a professional in order to set those boundaries.
This is about knowing where you begin and end your limits and your ability to receive responses that may include disappointment or discouragement. And why I want to talk about this today, because one of the number one questions I get from folks who I train. And this is so common is. If I know that virtually everyone I come in contact with, including my clients, including my teammates, my colleagues have experienced trauma or stress and acknowledged the current environment. We're collectively living in the historical trauma of a pandemic. What do I do? How do I respond? If I'm a photographer, if I'm a copywriter, if I am somebody in corporate, if I'm in healthcare, what do I do? If I notice somebody having a trauma response or they disclose to me. Their experience or I noticed that they're struggling or they say they need help or they're in crisis. What do I do?
And then there's this sense of panic. This fear starts to ripple up and even people have identified again, this is no shame or blame to them. The sense or feeling of freezing. They don't know what to do. They're afraid of causing harm. They want to be able to provide sense of safety and trust, but they are so unsure what to do that they freeze and they don't do anything.
So if you're listening to this. And this resonates this feeling of uncertainty, this feeling of how do I respond? What do I do? What do I say? I'm so afraid of causing harm? How do I make sure I don't. The sort of stickiness the stuckness then lean in because I'm here and I'm happy to help provide some clarity and some reassurance and hopefully some helpful information to help you get unstuck and into action. It's totally human of you. To be more cognizant, be more aware. And be more mindful of people's humanity. And when I say humanity, I'm talking about people's lived experiences of all kinds. Of their identities, their resources, their social advantages, their mental health, or emotional health, their physical health, literally everything that makes us human, our relationships. Our likes, our dislikes, our interests, our personality, all the things.
That's our humanity. When we become more aware. When we become more mindful. When we expand our empathy of others. We start to see people differently and not in a bad way, but in a more expanded way, a more compassionate way. We also simultaneously begin to see ourselves that way. And then we start to see the connections. We see things intersected, how our lived experiences intersect with our learned experiences which intersect with our. Identities which intersect with our advantages and our resources. And our health and our mental health. And all of these things are interconnected. And so then we begin to see maybe a little more clearly. How things like stress and trauma may be more pertinent, maybe more impactful, maybe more present in your everyday lives.
And so how human of you to be more aware and mindful attuned to be more sensitive? To want to ensure that you're not perpetuating. The environments and the conditions where trauma and stress thrive, but rather help people access a felt sense of safety and trust, which we know. Are the number one things that prevent, mitigate and heal trauma and stress. But that can be overwhelming. Especially if you're not somebody who has extensive training in how to support people, you're not a therapist. You're not a social worker. And again, a really gentle, loving reminder that you absolutely do not need to be. Therapist or social worker to do this approach to provide safe healthy, nurturing relationships to other people. So one of the things we can do, and one of the things I implore everyone does is to set professional boundaries.
We know, and we can figure out personal boundaries are a little bit different because they're more personal. But in our professions, It's a little more clear cut, even though there's a, still a lot of nuance and gray areas, of course, but we have the ability to set professional boundaries. And when we do so we are able to ensure we're building trust and safety to be felt. Not just for others, but also for ourselves. So again, I refer to this as our scope of practice, the professional boundaries you have that help ensure you're centering your capacity. In order to show up and build trust and promote safety within professional relationships. By knowing your scope of practice, you're ensuring that you know how to respond to people. If, and when they share something with you, whether it be a personal disclosure or just, having a bad day or something comes up. Or maybe they're having, a crisis or something like that, but really just everyday human interactions. We absolutely. I can apply a trauma informed approach within our scope of practice.
As professionals, we all have, not only the ability, but the responsibility to have clear, transparent and communicated boundaries. When we outline our scope of practice, we're demonstrating ethical and social responsibility to ensure we're being transparent and honest about our capacity within our role and services. So again, no matter what that is, we can clearly outline it and then demonstrate those boundaries through our actions. When we do that, it offers really clear expectations. So that those other people, whether it's your clients, your teammates, your boss, Whomever, it may be, know what to expect from working with you.
And it's a super supportive tool to ensure you're practicing within your limits. That you're not boundary creeping, that you're not going over the edge or putting yourself in a potentially. Risky situation risky being your boundary creeping, and you could potentially create an open pathway of harm towards others and yourself. Now, if you're here listening to this podcast, then I'm going to venture a guess that you are interested in or value trauma informed care. And if that's the case, the knowing and functioning within your scope of practice or AKA professional boundaries is one of the most important things you can do to resist harm and promote safety in your spaces. What does that actually mean? What is our scope of practice? Like I said, it is our professional boundaries. It includes our skillset, our education or training or credentials, our licensures, our competencies. And it's not just a one and done. It's something you take ample time to understand and check in to review and to update because it evolves as you evolve.
Let's use me as an example. I'm going to share a little bit about my scope of practice and how this is a applicable. So that you can have just a tangible example. So for example, I'm a licensed social worker in the state of Ohio. I went to graduate school. I had to take. A myriad of classes. I had to take a formal test. I had to receive. A lot of hours of supervision from a qualified. Licensed supervisor. I had to complete a professional. Not just continuing education, but also hours within the field. And then submit this to the state. And I regularly have to do that every two years with continuing education, et cetera. As a licensed social worker, my scope of practice is determined and dictated by the state of Ohio. It's a agreement between me and the state of Ohio. That clearly outlines where I begin and end. Within my professional boundaries as a social worker, there's a lot of different parameters. There's a lot of different ethics and values and things that I have to adhere to. And if I step outside of that scope of practice, then there are consequences. There are things in which I could potentially be fined. I could lose my license. There could be legal ramifications, and I could cause harm, not just to other people, but to myself. And so I have to take regular ample. Precautions and education and guidance to make sure that I'm adhering to that scope of practice, that professional boundary as a licensed social worker in the state of Ohio.
Now that scope of practice is very clearly outlined. It covers the education skills, competencies, ethos, et cetera. And there are specific requirements for me to adhere to, that scope of practice or professional boundaries. As a coach, I am a certified coach. I went through, I certified coaching program. But the coaching industry is an unregulated field. There is no credentialing board. There is no oversight board. There is nothing in which I had to submit and continue submitting to, to be overseed for my coaching certification. Now I did that through my training program. However it is not a credentialing board there it's not as specific as it would be for any licensed professionals. So I have to be sure as a coach. I am taking responsibility for my scope of practice. Clearly outlining it, looking around at industry best practices, industry standards. I use a lot and gained a lot from my own training program to help guide my scope of practice. I have to make sure I'm clearly delineating my. Professional boundaries between social work and coaching. And I have to make sure that I, although it's not required of me to upkeep my continuing education and skills, that is a very important value to me. And so I'm making sure. That I am seeking out. Ways to build my competencies. And when I do it widens my scope of practice and I have to make sure it's updated. When I work with clients or companies or individuals, whomever it is, I have to be sure I'm very clear and transparent, between which scope of practice I'm showing up in. The majority of the time, I am always showing up within my coaching or consulting hat.
And so there has to be very clear that I am not here to be a therapist or counselor or a social worker. I'm not functioning within that scope of practice. So you can see here that this is just an example of why professional boundaries are so important, but they're not just important to coaches or consultants or again, social workers or therapists or helping professionals. This is applicable to all of us. When we know and uphold this important. Necessary boundaries. We're honoring the best interests of ourselves and the people we work with. And when you lead or act outside of your scope of practice or your professional boundaries, whether it's intentional or unintentional. Pathways for direct or indirect harm may occur again, not just towards others, but potentially yourself.
Knowing your scope of practice practicing within it is one of the most supportive things you can do for yourself and others because it demonstrates strength and integrity. What I want to share here is another really big concern that often comes up. When we talk about our scope of practice. Is what if someone needs something and I can't provide it to them? What if someone share something? What if they need a resource? What if they say something? What do I do? What if I can't provide it? Again, How human of you to worry about this because you care and you have empathy and you know that you want to meet. Those people where they're at. But I'm here to remind you it is not a flaw. It is not a failure on your part. When you're unable to offer a service. Or respond because it's outside of your scope of practice, your professional boundaries. It means that person before you requires another path or another person to meet their needs.
It is not a flaw or failure. It's actually an incredible act of integrity. To know that this person needs something, you cannot provide them. Because if you were to assume ability, despite it being out of your scope of practice, Then it opens both you and the other person up to potential pathways for harm, whether it's intentional or unintentional. It's an incredible act of integrity to know your boundaries and to practice within them. If someone needs something, if they say something, if they, anything at all happens. And you notice this is outside your scope, communicating that. And then being able to resource them if possible is the best, most integrity based thing you can do.
I want to also share. That if we are going to commit to leading. As human first. To believe in people's humanity to honor it in our workplaces, within our professions. Then the reality is people are going to share their humanity with you. If you say that you want to be human centered human first. Then you also need to build the capacity to be with people's humanity. In all its forms, the good, the bad everything in between. Do you have the capacity to listen to people? And whatever they may share with you. And hold the moment. And let them feel seen and heard not to fix judge or solve it. But just to be with which, by the way, to be with people, to let them feel seen and heard that's what holding spaces. So if we want to be human first, if we want to be human centered, if we want to put more humanity into our workspaces. We have to build our capacity to be with our humanity, to hold space for our humanity, not just ours, but others.
And so knowing your scope of practice is the first step, because it allows you to feel more confident within your professional boundaries. It takes the guesswork out of knowing what to do or say, or how to respond. It's it takes away all of the confusion, the stickiness, that frozen feeling. So you know exactly what to do so you can validate and affirm the humanity of the people before you. And then, you know what to do next. We can absolutely. Listen to people and share their humanity, their stories. Listen to understand, not to fix judge or solve, to affirm, to validate. I thank you so much for sharing that with me. Oh, I'm so sorry. That happened to you. We can do that. You don't need to be a therapist. You don't need to be a social worker to validate people's humanity. Now, the next thing is, what do we do after that? If you get your shovel out and start digging into their story or asking questions or getting nosy, then you're starting to creep that boundary because really is that our business? Is that for us to know.
If we start to get uncomfortable because we don't have the capacity. To be with the person's humanity to before us, we might fall into trying to fix judge or solve. That's where unsolicited advice may come from. And that's where we unintentionally may cause a pathway for harm to occur because we bypass or minimize the experience of someone before us. We start to boundary creep. Is it our job to, resource this person before us, did they ask for that? Did they consent for us to help them? Or did they just need to be heard because they felt a sense of trust and safety in your presence. If we are going to honor the full humanity of the people in our workspaces, we have to build our capacity to do and knowing our scope of practice is one of the most important things we can do. And it's so simple. . And if you're sitting here listening and you say, I really want to do this. I really believe in the importance of this, but I don't know where to start or I don't know how to go any further. I want to get out of this unstuck feeling.
Then I invite you to join us on Tuesday, October 17th, for the setting professional boundaries workshop. I'll go over this in far more detail. About how to determine your scope of practice, AKA or professional boundaries specifically just for you. I will walk you through this methodology. I use an, I teach and I have taught , thousands of people over I will show you how to effectively communicate those boundaries so that you feel really good about it. And the people you are having those boundaries with feel really good about it. Because you're promoting trust and safety in those relationships. And I'll show you how to respond to client disclosures and needs without compromising your integrity. I have received feedback from thousands of people I've trained over the last few years. And the number one game changer that they identify in the training. Has been knowing their scope of practice.
The repeated feedback I received from people is how life shifting. It's been to learn how to set and lead within their professional boundaries. They've reported, enhanced client experiences. They've reported improved client outcomes because there's more trust and safety present. There's an increase of their own capacity because they don't feel like they're over-giving or over accommodating or they're stuck. They feel more competent in their skills and service delivery because they know what's in their scope and they don't feel like they're overreaching or boundary creeping. And they're more confident in knowing how to respond and support their clients in their full humanity without compromising their role. Again, this is a really simple, yet powerful method on how to get really clear on those boundaries communicated effectively and confidently leading within them. No matter what your profession is.
I'm really passionate about. This is one of my favorite things to help support people in integrating. Again, we can learn all we want about boundaries and the importance of boundaries, but doesn't matter if we're not integrating what we learn into action. And this active integrative skill set is one of the key things we can start doing.
If we want to co-create a trauma informed future. Setting your professional boundaries, communicating them and leading within them. No matter what your profession is, no matter if it's regulated and determined by a credentialing board or not, this is applicable to all of us. So I love talking about this topic. It's one of the things I most commonly help support people in integrating when they look to adopt a trauma informed approach. And that's why I'm excited to share this workshop on October 17th. I hope you'll join us again. A reminder, if you do feel called to join us, everyone who attends will receive the, know your scope toolkit for free, which offers an easy to use scope of practice statement, template, and a guide to confidently lead within your professional boundaries.
You can join. , virtually it will be recorded if you can't join us live. If you would like to join, you can go to katie-kurtz.com/workshops to sign up. And this is great. If you need a refresher, if you need just to get into action or reinforce your boundaries again, this isn't a one and done practice it's evolves as you evolve within your profession. So this is a great reusable template and guide and method to use.
I'm curious as you sit with this and your professional boundaries, what came up for you within this episode? What are some areas in which you might notice you are really strong in maybe some areas that need some strengthening. And again, choosing curiosity over judgment. That this is reciprocal. Boundaries aren't walls. They're collaborative and co-creative. And when there are clearly transparently. Communicated and they're demonstrated through our actions. They're going to promote trust and safety within our relationships. And we know what's possible. When trust and safety exists in relationships. If any questions or clarifications rise up in this podcast, you know where to contact me. You can connect with me on social media and Instagram, LinkedIn, or feel free to email me at hello@katie-kkurtz.com. Again, I would love to see you in the workshop on October 17th at 12:00 PM. Eastern standard time.
You can find that link at katie-kurtz.com/workshops, or go to the show notes and all the links will be found there. I hope as you leave this podcast today, that you can really think more and discern more around your professional boundaries and how important they are. No matter what profession you're in. This is a really great first step in an integrative trauma informed approach and how we can all take social responsibility in co-creating a trauma-informed future. Until next time, take good care.
