020 Behavioural Self-Care: Preventing Practitioner Burnout with Micaela Rafferty cover art

020 Behavioural Self-Care: Preventing Practitioner Burnout with Micaela Rafferty

020 Behavioural Self-Care: Preventing Practitioner Burnout with Micaela Rafferty

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 In this episode, Micaela Rafferty — Board-Certified Behaviour Analyst, special educator, and nationally recognised nutritionist — joins the podcast to explore the science of burnout and how behaviour analysts and allied health professionals can apply their own expertise to protect their health and wellbeing. Micaela unpacks the official definition of burnout as a predictable response to chronic, unresolved workplace stress and explains why those working in the NDIS space face a particularly layered set of stressors — from shifting government policy and funding constraints through to compassion fatigue and the emotional demands of caring work. The conversation covers practical, evidence-based self-care strategies grounded in behavioural science: designing supportive environments, reducing response effort, building in rest and recovery across physical, mental, emotional, and sensory dimensions, and creating systems of accountability and reinforcement to sustain behaviour change over time.

This episode reframes self-care not as an indulgence but as an ethical and professional responsibility. The very skills practitioners apply daily with clients and participants — functional assessment, environment design, shaping small consistent behaviours, and frequent reinforcement — are exactly the tools needed to protect clinical capacity and prevent burnout. Whether you’re already feeling the weight of an unsustainable workload, or you want to get ahead of the warning signs, Micaela’s insights offer a genuinely practical starting point. Small, meaningful steps, taken consistently and without self-judgement, are what create lasting change — and that applies as much to practitioners as it does to the people they support.

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