Self-care is vital for academics who research difficult, sensitive, or controversial topics. It is the key to mitigating the impact of that work and ensuring a long, productive career.

To help other researchers explore new ideas for self-care – and protect time for it – Siobhan and her colleagues, Dr Sharon McDonough and Dr Sarah Pinto, wrote the Self-Care Manifesto.

Siobhan has also contributed to the toolkit for MASTERY, a EUniWell funded project designed to help academics manage the impact of researching and teaching on sensitive or distressing topics. Siobhan’s post Find Your Folks, focuses on the importance of working in strong research teams. An excerpt from the post appears below. The full post can be found at the MASTERY website.

Professor Steven Sabat once told me that our job as researchers is to “hold their tears” and there’s a note above my desk, with a quote from Lidia Yuknavitch, that says “it’s your job not to flinch”.  Knowing that people have trusted me with their darkest experiences, and asked me to keep looking when others look away, has kept me going through many a difficult day. But what happens when you can’t hold any more tears? What happens when one more heart-breaking story makes you flinch?

In my most recent projects it’s become clear that the answer is: find your folks.  Build research teams full of kind, funny, like-minded people who are as committed to caring for each other as they are to doing high-quality research. Gather around you people who each offer a unique perspective or skill, the sum of which is greater than its parts. Create a community of colleagues who will step in when you need to step away, help you hold the tears, and remind you it’s human to flinch.

I’m particularly grateful that the folks around me include carers, who have become co-investigators on the research. While I am an expert by profession, they are experts by experience. They make a unique and important contribution, ensuring that our research is safe, sensitive, rigorous, and designed to facilitate change in policy and practice. They challenge me, hug me, cry with me, laugh with me, tell me when I could do better, and whole-heartedly praise me when I’ve done well.

They drowned out the voices of the doubters and the naysayers, gave me permission to put down the load I’d been carrying, and showed me I wasn’t alone on the journey. Doing research on sensitive topics is a calling – it’s not for everyone – but when you find your folks you’ll have everything you need to answer that call.