Call for presentations: “Safely in Our Hands: Helping Our Helpers Stay Healthy”

Are you a compassion fatigue/vicarious trauma educator and/or practitioner? Are you interested in sharing your ideas/new approaches to helping other helpers who are facing compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma? The Association of Traumatic Stress Specialists will be holding its annual conference September 29 – October 3, 2010 at the Delta Airport Hotel – Toronto, Canada.

Click here for more information.

Last week was very rich and stimulating as I had the opportunity to spend three consecutive days with a small group of helping professionals in the context of a compassion fatigue train the trainer workshop. It is always a real treat to have a small group to work with, as we get to actually talk things through and explore ideas in a way that I don't get to do with larger audiences. (Thank you to all of you for your willingness to take part in this process and for putting up with the many bizarre hotel-induced mishaps which took place during our time together!)

This week, I am off to Ottawa for a one day workshop with victim service workers and then to Cornwall to present to a group of helpers who work for correctional services. The challenges for both of these groups are complex, but one main issue is related to vicarious traumatization - being exposed to difficult client stories, even in a secondary way. If your job is to read crime reports day in and day out, eventually these stories have an impact on how you see the world. They simply do. If you work in a correctional environment, the very air you breathe is filled with trauma stories. What to do with this reality? How do we protect ourselves from trauma content? One suggestion (many more are included in my book, The Compassion Fatigue Workbook) is to read the wonderful book Trauma Stewardship by Laura van Dernoot Lipsky. Laura offers an excellent conceptualisation of trauma work and its impact on us, but also provides strategies, which she anchors conceptually in what she calls the Five Directions: "As we do our work, we continually seek strength by finding our center in the present moment. At the same time, we strive to enhance our self-knowledge by focusing consciously and concretely on the basic elements of our lives. The things we learn at the four outlying points of our compass of trauma stewarship will become the tools we can use to build a daily practice of centering ourselves." If you work with victims of crime or with survivors (who are sometimes perpetrators as well), I encourage you to take a look at her work.

"One in four hospital workers report they plan to leave their jobs"

"Almost three in every five health-care workers are suffering from "role overload", a situation that is damaging their physical and mental health and putting many on the fast track to burnout, a new study suggest." These quotes (the title quote as well) are from an article by André Picard, published in yesterday's Globe and Mail (January 19, 2010) reports the findings from a recent study by Linda Duxbury on Ottawa area hospitals. To view article click here.

I am glad to hear that health care workers are finally getting the attention they deserve. Anyone working within the system could have told you that this was happening but maybe, just maybe, if the data is there to back it up, something will be done.

Starting the year at warp speed. Not what I had planned...

I did not expect the new year to start with quite the bang it did in our house. The minute the kids went back to school, things quickly got busy on many fronts: at home, my children announced that they had long term projects that required nightly help from me (one involved building a diorama of the North American prairie bison’s habitat, to give you an idea…), my hubby decided that it was time to get organized and started clearing out and decluttering not one, but four areas of our house at the same time (“they are all interconnected, you see” he explained to me). The process was a little hairy: we were assembling storage cabinets at 9pm after having taken kids to hockey or soccer, helped them with homework (aka plasticine bison), cooked a (usually) nutritious meal and cleaned the dishes. Whew. My partner is a night owl and he starts hitting his stride at around 9:30pm, just as I am winding down…way down. For last two weeks, he has been bouncing out of his office just around that time, holding a piece of paper triumphantly in his hands: “I’ve got it! The perfect design for [fill in the blank] room.” He is wonderfully creative and I am delighted with the results, but the process made my head spin a bit. I had to bite my tongue and take an allen key and smile and get to work.

Being a morning person, I did take my revenge in the mornings, standing at the foot of the bed at 730am, asking him a million questions in a very perky voice, fully dressed and showered, having a) done an hour of work b) gone for a run c) taken the ikea boxes to the recycling depo and d) done the groceries. Even though we have been together for nearly 20 years, this diurnal/nocturnal mismatch in our relationship always catches me by surprise: “You want to discuss what? But it’s past 9pm, I have no opinion whatsoever about that. None. I am basically asleep. Yes, I know, I am walking around, but I’m not actually here, not at all.” My poor hubby.

Things started out rather quickly on the work front too. Right before going on vacation, I was offered a very interesting contract with a very tight timeline, and this is what I have been working on for most of the month so far. The contract involves carrying out a full organizational health assessment of a unit in a hospital. I have had the opportunity to interview many staff members, speaking to nurses, physicians and allied health professionals to find out what is challenging and rewarding about their work in the unit. Given that I am normally doing large group presentations, I don’t often get the chance to sit down to talk one on one with helpers and it was wonderful to have a chance to do this.

My training schedule is pretty full in the coming months. This week I will be offering three days of compassion fatigue training in Markham. This training is organized by Safeguards and will be offered again in London, Ontario in March 2010. These workshops are open to any helping professional wishing to register. Next week I will be in Ottawa and Cornwall, working with victim services and with corrections Canada.

And for those of you who are wondering (hi mom) how I am looking after myself with such a busy schedule, I am making sure to eat really healthy foods, run regularly, go to bed early, take naps, read books unrelated to work, watch movies, spend time with kids (laughing mostly) and go out for dinner with friends.

Soon, this busy first month of the year will end, and I will have a very organized home and enough leftover plasticine to make a full herd of bisons!

Haiti Earthquake - Please consider making a donation

My thoughts are with the people of Haiti and all of those in Canada who have loved ones over in Haiti. Please consider making a donation online to the Canadian Red Cross, earmarked to the Haiti Earthquake Fund.

Donations can also be made by calling toll-free 1-800-418-1111 or by visiting any Red Cross office.

A blog for palliative care workers (and the rest of us too)

I recently came across this lovely little blog: palliativechronicle.blogspot.com

I don't know anything about the author (known on the blog as simply JL), except for what she writes on the heading of her blog: "FROM ANESTHESIOLOGIST TO PALLIATIVE MEDICINE PHYSICIAN" and I take it from her profile that she is currently doing a fellowship training in palliative care.

If you work in end of life care, you may find useful resources and musings there.There are some very good links to other resources, postings of recent articles in the field and JL's posts which recently spoke of mindfulness meditation in connection to keeping CF at bay.

I personally enjoyed visiting and will definitely be going back.

Upcoming events of interest

Ice fishing rocks! Photo by F. Mathieu