Experts urge child-welfare professionals to adopt self-compassion and stronger connection to reduce burnout

At its eighth meeting, the Montana ICWA Community of Practice hosted a virtual conversation in which Sherry Fremont, managing director of the judicial and national engagement consulting team at KC Family Programs, and Vivek Sankaran, clinical professor of law at the University of Michigan Law School, urged child-welfare professionals and court actors to prioritize self-compassion and human connection to reduce burnout and improve the quality of work with families.

The discussion centered on why compassion and self-care matter in child-welfare practice and what practical steps individuals and organizations can take. “The short answer ... is not well,” Sankaran said when asked how the field is doing, describing high levels of exhaustion, anxiety and loneliness among professionals. Fremont and Sankaran framed compassion both as an ethical practice and a pragmatic tool to improve relationships with families and to support professionals’ decision-making.

Why this matters: speakers linked workforce strain to downstream effects on families. Sankaran recounted an…