Work within personal limits of ability

We did a triad last week, trying to be a helper to help an asylum seeker that is under difficult situation. In that scenario, the helpee mentioned that he is going to end his life because he faced financial difficulty, uncertainty about his entitlement to stay in UK and lost of his partner. During that triad, both the classmates and myself noticed that my performance is quite different from my previous triad. In my point of view, that’s a rare case because I’ve never faced similar experience before. When I look back, I think the case provoked my memory of leaving my hometown and move to UK.  I noticed that the situation of the helpee triggered some of my emotions, thus I cannot apply skills learned. Instead, I shared and trapped under the same hopelessness and cannot provide appropriate assistance to the helpee.  I think that’s a really important discovery because I didn’t realized that the act of leaving my hometown still affect my emotion underneath. I thought I’ve already spent sufficient effort to deal with those emotions, but didn’t noticed that I still have a fear that I may not able to obtain settled status in UK. In a logical way of thinking, that case is very unlikely to happen, but it seems that’s a fear that I’m not aware during the last two years. I’m delighted to have this finding, so that I know that I have limits when working with helpees that are asylum seekers or still struggled to stay in UK legally, and it’d better to pass these cases to other helpers to handle, and I can then work on other cases. I’m not sure if this limit can be improved, I will review again once I obtain settled status a few years later. 

Apart from the self-discovery, last week’s triad was a great chance for me to re-think the importance of providing suitable referral to helpee in case he/she need wider support that other than the helper can provide. Although I’ve had some counselling training and can provide some emotional support, that doesn’t mean that I am the only source to offer all kinds of help. Take the scenario that mentioned in the above paragraph as example, the helpee faced issues related to financial situation, asylum application and potential conflicts between helpee and his partner. Since it’s a complicated situation and involved multiple factors, it’s beyond my ability to help solely. Given that the civil society in UK is very mature and the many support from the government is available, I think I need to understand my limit and learn how I can seek support from various sources if helpee’s case is complicated. For example, if the helpee need emergency good, food bank and local church probably can offer some help immediately. Moreover, if helpee need additional advise about how to appeal against the asylum decision, charity that can offer profession legal advise might be able to provide some help to the helpee. From this triad, I learned the importance to identify what kind of support is available in UK. Besides gaining more knowledge about counselling and psychology theories, I think one of the things that I need to work on in the future is to check how to do referral properly, so that it fulfils the ethical standard that helper should follow. Moreover, it’s also essential for me to learn how to propose referral in a wise way, so that the act will not bring negative feeling to helpee.