When the personal is professional: Understanding and addressing vicarious trauma

Finding it harder to practice self-care after years in the field? Not feeling “yourself” at work or at home? You may be experiencing vicarious trauma or compassion fatigue. These are common occurrences among clinicians, medical professionals, direct service workers, direct responders, educators, and advocates.

This half-day training will take an in-depth look at compassion fatigue, vicarious trauma, burnout, and resourcing. Participants will learn to recognize possible signs and contributing factors through an intersectional lens. They will acquire resiliency-based strategies to address each of them along with debriefing techniques that minimize impact on the listener.

After reviewing information on standard contributing factors to vicarious trauma and compassion fatigue, participants will discuss how working conditions have changed throughout the pandemic, to increase risk factors for clinician mental health. Resourcing practices will be tailored to include polyvagal and tapping practices. These practices address the heightened stress in direct service setting and in the online culture of service delivery.