Wellness And Rest For Advocates Of Color
This resource provides a case for why rest and wellness is essential for providers/ advocates of color working in the care field. It provides tips, research, reflection prompts and a template for a sabbatical policy for seasoned staff.
Why Rest & Wellness is Essential
Advocates of color experience disproportionately high levels of racialized stress, secondary traumatic stress, and emotional labor. Research shows these factors increase burnout risk and negatively impact physical and mental health.
1. Racialized Stress Creates Long-Term Health Impacts
• Chronic exposure to racism increases cortisol, hypertension, and inflammation.
• Linked to anxiety, depression, sleep disruption, and cardiovascular disease.
For example, as an advocate you may be constantly exposed to stories of trauma, potentially experiencing your own triggers based on the environment that you work in. For many advocates, especially those of color, the constant triggers can lead to burn out, anxiety, and depression. As humans, our bodies are not meant to be in constant “on” mode. When you are navigating the impacts of racism and oppression in your day to day life, including within your work day, your body is constantly responding to stress.
To sustain yourself in this work, find habits that restore your energy. These may include ensuring you are taking your breaks and eating lunch.
Having a system in place, either through supervision or peers, where you can discuss challenges and stressors.
Utilizing the healthcare options available to you to support your physical health.
Finding support through counseling, meditation, and other forms of mental health support can be beneficial.
2. Advocates of Color Experience More Secondary Traumatic Stress (STS)
• Advocates who share community ties with survivors are more likely to mirror trauma.
• Identity-based empathy deepens emotional labor.
Many advocates of color bring their own personal commitment to the mission of their organization and often have ties within the community that they serve. For some, they may have experienced or may actively be experiencing similar events as the individuals they are supporting, for example domestic violence or sexual violence. Secondary Traumatic Stress or Vicarious Trauma can manifest when an individual hears detailed trauma stories over and over. Further, you may bring a lot of empathy to your work. By connecting emotionally to the experience of those you serve, your nervous system can internalize that distress. Additionally, you may feel pressured or personally responsible to resolve the problems your client is experiencing. That is a lot of responsibility to carry and one that begins to compound.
Be mindful of when you begin to carry the weight of solving every problem. While you work in a helping profession, there are limits to what any one person can do. If you notice emotional numbness, feeling constantly “on,” or difficulty disconnecting from clients’ stories, pause and acknowledge it. Seek support, whether through a supervisor or colleague.
Remember, you are part of a support system. You are not solely responsible for the outcomes of someone’s life.Your role is to support, not to carry it alone. Pay attention to when emotional labor is building up and create intentional space to disconnect from work. That may include setting firmer boundaries or taking a mental health day when needed.
3. Burnout is a Structural Problem
• Workload, inequity, cultural taxation, and lack of support drive burnout.
• Burnout contributes to turnover within 3–5 years in the Gender Based Violence (GBV) field.
Burnout and moral distress are not personal failings. They are often the result of systemic pressures within organizations and the broader field. Contributing factors, such as high caseloads, underfunding in nonprofits, unclear role expectations, and limited access to supervision or mental health support create environments where exhaustion becomes normalized. For staff from historically marginalized communities, cultural taxation and inequitable workloads further intensify strain. Cultural taxation is the added and often unrecognized labor placed on staff from marginalized communities to represent, educate, mentor, or carry cultural-related issues. Over time, that invisible weight increases strain and speeds up burnout.
When there are competing priorities, clarify and confirm what is truly urgent versus what is important but not time-sensitive. When everything is labeled urgent, your nervous system never gets a break. Identify which tasks require immediate action and which can be scheduled, delegated, or put in the backburner. Have that conversation with your supervisor so expectations align with capacity.
If you are a supervisor, model this clearly with your team. Not everything can be urgent. Set clear priorities, realistic timelines, and protect your staff from unnecessary escalation. Clear prioritization is a burnout prevention strategy, not just a tool for productivity.
4. Evidence-Based Strategies
Restorative leave and sabbaticals
Dedicated time away from work allows advocates to recover from stress and secondary trauma. For advocates of color, who may also carry racialized stress and cultural taxation, this type of leave supports long-term retention and nervous system recovery. In order to sustain long-term engagement, we need to proactively plan for and encourage advocates to take time off to truly disconnect.
Culturally responsive supervision
Supervision that acknowledges race, identity, power dynamics, and lived experience creates psychological safety. When advocates of color feel seen and understood, they are more likely to process workplace stress and less likely to internalize challenges experienced at work.
Affinity and healing spaces
Affinity spaces provide opportunities for shared understanding without the need to explain or defend one’s experience. These spaces reduce feelings of isolation and can provide validation of experiences, which is especially important in fields addressing violence and trauma.
Workload boundaries and flexibility
Clear limits around caseloads, after-hours expectations, and role clarity can protect advocates from burnout. Flexibility recognizes that wellbeing includes family, community, and cultural commitments, which supports sustainability rather than constant engagement in work.
Leadership pathways that counter inequity
Transparent advancement opportunities and equitable compensation can address gaps where advocates of color remain overworked but under-recognized. Creating and communicating paths to leadership, which can and should include mentorship and professional development is an investment in staff, which also can reduce turnover.
Sample Sabbatical Policy (Template)
Purpose
To promote long-term resilience, support employee wellbeing, and honor emotional and racial labor through extended rest.
Amount of Leave
Employees with at least 5 years of full-time service may receive up to 2 months of paid sabbatical leave.
Executive leadership sabbaticals may require board approval.
Extensions allowed with appropriate approval.
Use
Requests must be submitted 3 months in advance.
Must include a continuity-of-operations plan.
Cannot be combined with other paid leave.
Only one employee may take a sabbatical at a time.
Additional sabbaticals may be requested every 5 years.
Limitations
A discretionary benefit, not guaranteed.
Only for employees in good standing.
Not paid out upon separation.
No additional pay in lieu of taking the leave.
Citations & Resources
Research Citations
Williams, D. R., & Mohammed, S. A. (2018). Racism and Health I: Pathways and Scientific Evidence.
American Psychological Association (2019). Stress in America: The Impact of Discrimination.
Bride, B. (2011). The Risk of Secondary Traumatic Stress in Professionals Who Work with Trauma Survivors.
Molnar, B. et al. (2017). Advancing science and practice for vicarious trauma.
Padilla, A. M. (1994). Ethnic Minority Scholars and Cultural Taxation.
Joseph, T. D., & Hirshfield, L. E. (2011). Race and cultural taxation in academia.
Maslach, C., & Leiter, M. (2016). Burnout: A Multidimensional Perspective.
Bloom, S. (2010). Organizational Stress & Trauma-Informed Systems.
Resources
Healing Justice: www.healingjustice.org
National Compadres Network: https://nationalcompadresnetwork.org
Asian Pacific Institute on Gender-Based Violence
Black Emotional and Mental Health Collective (BEAM): www.beam.community
National Latinx Psychological Association
The Nap Ministry: https://thenapministry.wordpress.com/
Vicarious Trauma Toolkit (OVC): https://ovc.ojp.gov/vtt
