Emotional Fatigue Is Real - Here’s What to Do About It. Recognising Emotional Overload, Protecting Your Energy and Finding Your Way Back to Yourself

Supporting children and young people can be incredibly meaningful, but it can also require a significant amount of emotional energy. SNAs and other education staff may spend their day noticing emotions, anticipating needs, supporting regulation, managing difficult moments, reassuring others and staying composed — sometimes while carrying their own worries quietly in the background.

Eventually, it can feel like more than ordinary tiredness.

Emotional fatigue may show up as irritability, numbness, reduced patience, overthinking, difficulty switching off after work, feeling unusually emotional, withdrawing from others, or simply thinking: “I have nothing left to give.”

Participants will explore practical ways to recognise emotional overload earlier, understand what their emotions may be signalling, reduce unnecessary emotional carrying, create realistic boundaries and develop small recovery practices that can fit into an ordinary school day.

The goal is not to become someone who is never affected.

The goal is to become someone who can notice: “This is affecting me. What do I need now?”

Learning Objectives

By the end of this webinar, participants will be able to:

1. Recognise common signs of emotional fatigue and distinguish emotional exhaustion from an ordinary difficult or tiring day.
2. Understand emotions as information rather than problems, becoming more curious about what feelings may be communicating about needs, boundaries, pressure and capacity.
3. Identify emotional drains within the SNA role, including constant vigilance, emotional masking, responsibility for others, difficult interactions, uncertainty and carrying situations home.
4. Apply realistic strategies for emotional recovery, including micro-boundaries, emotional check-ins, deliberate letting go, body-based regulation, reflective practice and knowing when additional support may be needed.

Facilitator: Magdalena Landziak

Magdalena is an advocate for special and inclusive education and an experienced SNA, with over 10 years of experience supporting children with additional needs in primary school settings. She works as a tutor delivering QQI Level 6 SNA courses and provides CPD training for various Education Centres across Ireland. Recognising the need for ongoing, tailored support for SNAs, Magdalena founded SNA Academy to deliver practical, research-informed training and resources. She is also the Editor of AMYGDALA - the First National Magazine for SNAs, sharing insights, strategies, and inspiration to enhance inclusive practice in schools. Recently, she launched her own podcast, From the Bottom of My Heart, creating a space for meaningful conversations, inspiring stories and diverse perspectives on education, inclusion, wellbeing and life experiences. Magdalena holds a Master’s degree in Inclusive Education and SEN, as well as a Postgraduate Certificate (level 9) in 21st Century Teaching and Learning from Trinity College Dublin. She is passionate about supporting children with additional needs and equally dedicated to sharing her knowledge, experience and practical strategies with SNAs and educators to promote meaningful inclusion and strengthen everyday practice. Through her social media platform, @sna_zone, she shares practical strategies, educational resources, professional insights and inspiration to support SNAs and educators in their everyday practice.