Sitting with our Stories - Debriefing Part 1
by Missy Gray
Care Specialist
I’m a big believer that stories deserve to be told. That the act of telling a story can be in and of itself beneficial and powerful. That the storyteller benefits from having space to set their story between us on the table where we are drinking coffee together (or the Zoom screen where we meet), so we can both look at it and laugh, or cry, or talk about why it matters. Sometimes the story sitting between us is a beautifully wrapped gift; other times it’s a pile of puzzle pieces with no boxtop to reference; and occasionally, it’s a snake, slithering on the table with us while we nervously try to decide if it is venomous. Regardless of the form, sitting with people and their stories honors their experiences and allows them to be examined.
In the next two months, we are going to be looking at debriefing as a tool to help workers process things that happen to them during their time on the field. Many of us talk about “debriefing” all the time: we may debrief the day with our spouse, debrief with a friend to analyze a conversation or celebrate a win, or debrief to vent with a trusted person about something hurtful or confusing. In this setting, we are describing something different and specific, though it shares many similarities.
Debriefing is an intentional process that allows someone to
tell their story,
examine it,
acknowledge the effects of it,
make meaning of it, and
decide how to talk about it in the future.
At MRN, we are investing this year in learning about and facilitating good debriefing with the workers who we partner with to pursue health and effectiveness on the field. In this article, we will talk about some types of debriefing, when they might be useful, and how they help.
There are several types and formats of debriefing, and each serves a different purpose depending on the need and focus. Let’s look at a few together:
Organizational/Administrative/Strategic:
This is a type of debrief that is done to evaluate and hear about the work. This conversation might take place with a sending church or an organization, and helps the global worker assess and talk about their progress, strategies, and vision for the future. It often includes feelings about their work and intentional relationships, how their calling might be shifting, or how pivots might be made to support health or growth personally or in the ministry.
Personal/Maintenance/Home Visit:
This debriefing is a scheduled time to check in on the experiences and well-being of the worker during a specific period of time. They can occur quarterly, biannually, annually, or when the worker is on home assignment, but regular scheduling is key. This allows a worker to think and talk through some of the positive and negative things they and/or their family have experienced, how these experiences have affected them personally, and if any further work or intervention would be helpful as they move forward. These debriefs can cover physical, spiritual, emotional, relational, and cognitive well-being in addition to any important or repeated experiences during the defined time period. Often, things surface in this debriefing time that the worker might not have seen as influential until space was made to reflect.
Critical Incident/Trauma:
When a crisis or trauma happens, or even in some cases almost happens, it can have significant and long-lasting consequences on a worker. These events can be experienced individually, like a carjacking or a dangerous incident with a worker’s children; or communally, like an earthquake or coup. When something difficult or traumatic happens, a critical incident debrief helps a person establish physical and psychological safety, talk through the effects of the event, and make plans to gather needed resources and move forward. This type of debriefing is most effectively facilitated by someone trained and skilled, and is a the-sooner-the-better kind of thing.
Reentry/Reassignment:
When a worker returns from the field, or moves to a new region or country for service, this type of debrief can be invaluable. These are typically multi-day experiences and are often in a group, where several days are given to processing the experiences of the workers, processing the losses and gains of the time in service, forecasting the upcoming transitions, and normalizing and verbalizing the struggles of returning or reengaging their passport culture.
I’m a big fan of Malcolm Gladwell. When referencing the idea that experience is the best teacher, he talks about how a critical feature to growth is not just having the experiences, but examining them. He also said in an interview, “People who are busy doing things—as opposed to people who are busy sitting around, like me, reading and having coffee in coffee shops—don’t have opportunities to collect and organize their experiences and make sense of them.” Debriefing may not take place in a coffee shop—then again, it might—but it does allow space for a worker, with the Lord and a thoughtful and intentional guide, to slow down from the frenetic pace of their work and life to collect and organize their experiences, acknowledge the effects of them, and make meaning of them.
A few weeks ago, I was at a training seminar for debriefers hosted by TRAIN International. The work they do for God’s children returning from global work is intentional, multimodal, and excellent. The other students in that training were around 15 member care providers. A repeated refrain during the week was “if I had had this when I was on the field/came back, I think things would have really been different for me/my spouse/my kids.” Often, the picture they painted was of a jumble of things that they could have used help untangling. Sometimes, they could point to a specific event they really needed help to process and understand so they could see God in it. Most of them had experienced strategic debriefings by their churches or organizations, where they were asked to report on their work. They often needed other types of debriefing as well.
Next month, we will talk about tools for listening well to your workers, and considerations of each of the different types of debriefing. For now, here are some general ideas about debriefing to keep in mind if you support workers in any way:
1. Prioritize all of the forms of debriefing in your missions ministry.
2. Communicate the debriefing that is available to the workers you serve (or that is expected of them), and do it regularly.
3. Make the spaces for debriefing that you provide intentional and safe. Give plenty of space and time to listen and process well.
4. Think about which debriefing you can faithfully do yourself and obtain training when appropriate, and decide what debriefing you need to farm out to skilled professionals.
5. Invest time and money into valuing and investing in your workers with debriefing. This could look like budgeting for site visits as well as debriefing professionals.
6. Plan to provide debriefing experiences for the whole family, including (especially) the kids. There are great age-appropriate resources available.
Debriefing is not the magic bullet that makes serving globally easy or ties up with a bow the disappointing and traumatic things that workers experience. But research as well as anecdotal evidence supports that it honors the worker, and it REALLY helps. Sitting with people in their stories is a gift to the listener as well as the teller. May we be willing to create places of safety as well as invest in places of safety to support those we serve. If you are a worker who wants some resources for pursuing any of these types of debriefing, let us know. We are honored to serve you.