Compassion Fatigue Solutions

A little update on what WHP has been up to in the last week:

Serious stuff:
-I have been making sugar cookies with kids and went to see the new disney movie Enchanted (actually a fun movie and excellent self care. Patrick Dempsey is a nice addition to the movie for us adults who enjoy his...acting)

Fun stuff:
-I had a very interesting and stimulating dinner conversation with Dr Pat Fisher who is a clinical psychologist and workplace wellness consultant based in NYC and Vancouver. Pat Fisher is the CEO of Fisher and Associates. Her company specialises in helping agencies address the health of their organization from a systemic approach. Over the past 10 years, she and her team have developed solid, empirically tested tools and a manualised approach to helping individuals, teams, managers and the organization as a whole face the challenges of CF, burnout and other major organizational transitions and stresses. I found her work to be of the highest quality and it has real depth and substance (unlike, to be honest, much of the workplace wellness material I have come across so far). This is material developed by helping professionals who are able to go deep and make a real impact. I look forward to future conversations with Pat.

-I have been making steady progress on the Compassion Fatigue Workbook, which is nearing completion. The most time consuming part is obtaining permissions to reprint certain testing scales and tools from publishers of other works. One such conversation has already been going on for one year. A typical email goes like this:

Publisher: "how many copies of this manual will you be printing on your first round?"
Me: I email an answer
two months pass....
Publisher: "will you be selling this on your website or in bookstores?"
Me: I email an answer (even though I told them all of this in the initial email)
two months pass...
Publisher: "do you prefer apple pie with ice cream or with cheese?"
two months pass...

So, at this rate, I may have to leave out a few tools or invent new ones myself!

I am also finishing a booklet on "how to run a workshop in your community" and the train the trainer manual. However, since the TtheT manual hinges on the WtheW workbook, I will focus on WtheW first and then complete the rest.

I hope you are well and taking some time to bake cookies with children or whatever is your equivalent self care activity (maybe buying cookies and eating them without a child in sight, that might also be very relaxing).