Wellbeing: What’s going on?

Remember four years ago, September 2020? I’m not sure I can. The COVID years are such a blur now I can barely remember anything that happened during them. The one thing I do remember is the upsurge of conversations about, and an increase in the number of reports about, wellbeing. There were plentiful online workshops, podcasts, articles, and discussions about what needed to be to be done to improve our wellbeing. Most of these discussions and commentaries ended up saying the same thing – we need culture change and we need it now.

Back in 2020 I had an article published in The Review called Brave enough to be it. The article is still on the Resolution website and still outside the members’ wall. I’m very grateful to Resolution for this. The premise of my article was that it is fear that stops us from changing things. Some might say that that resolutely remains the case. The clamour for culture change and a greater commitment to wellbeing is as loud as ever, with an increasingly impatient note sounding in the collective voice. Everyone wants it, everyone needs it, everyone is too busy to do anything about it.

And at the same time I think there are reasons to be optimistic:

• The very fact that the conversation continues to be had is a reason to be hopeful. We could have all just put our heads back in the sand and we haven’t. Pockets of conversation are happening all over, people are doing things and telling others about what they are doing. People are attending workshops and webinars in greater numbers – for example, a recent (September 2024) Law Care webinar on Vicarious Trauma attracted more delegates who were more engaged than ever before. We all know things need to improve and we are keen to learn from those who are already putting their ideas into practice.
• More and more of us are looking for a way of making our practices truly reflective – ways of learning what the job is doing to us and why, on an intentionally individual basis. We are all different, so one person’s trigger is water off a duck’s back to another. There is an upturn in the number of people seeking reflective supervision (as opposed to case supervision) and asking for their employers to fund it.
• We have had the Family Solutions Group report – Language Matters – deep diving into how the language we use in our work directly impacts on the people we are using it about; how changing that language could transform the separation experience for many. This report came with the ringing endorsement of Sir Andrew McFarlane: ‘bit by bit the penny is dropping: language is important.’ If you haven’t read the report, I heartily recommend it.
• There has been an increased recognition of the need for skills training. When I’ve asked family lawyers what percentage of their work is actually law, they rarely give a figure higher than 15%. So it is incredible when you think about it that the training available for us is almost exclusively aimed at that 15% and hardly anything aimed at skilling us up in the other 85%. There has been an increase over the last four years in essential skills training. Alongside Resolution courses groups like Only Mums and Dads, ReFLEx and The Carvalho Consultancy offer detailed skills courses on a variety of subjects all designed to make us better, safer and more healthy in our jobs.
• There is a growing sense across the profession (not just family lawyers) that the ‘always on’ culture is not just bad for the lawyers but bad for the clients. There is a lot of anecdotal evidence that clients do not want to be represented by lawyers who are on their knees with exhaustion, and purposefully check out firms’ policies on wellbeing before engaging their representatives. That may be more prevalent in the commercial sector at the moment but it will soon move to other sectors.

These are great steps forward but there is still a lot to do. The culture change still has a long way to go before the majority of practitioners notice the difference, for vicarious trauma and burnout to be things of the past. Here are some questions we might ask ourselves, our colleagues, our friends, in order to keep the conversation going enough for lasting change to really start to happen:

• How and when do we involve the regulators in the conversation?
• To what extent should reflective practice supervision be mandatory – both in terms of receiving it (like the mental health professionals do) and in terms of funding it?
• Should there be mandatory investment by firms and chambers in the wellbeing of their members?
• Should insurers offer lower premiums to firms who do provide reflective practice support?
• Should skills training be mandatory in universities and law colleges?
• And what about in firms and chambers as a routine part of CPD?
• How do we stop talking and start doing?

I would love to hear your thoughts and ideas so please feel free to contact me.

 gb@flip.co.uk