Compassion Fatigue Solutions

Yup, that's my foot. I am going on holidays for 2.5 weeks starting July 23 so the office will be closed during this time. I look forward to the holiday, of course, but am also really excited about the upcoming interviews with helpers and the other projects that are currently brewing. Meanwhile, I would like to recommend a wonderful radio show that is also on podcast, (if you haven't heard it yet) and a lovely movie totally unrelated to this work.

Radio show/podcast: White Coat, Black Art, on CBC radio

Movie: Once, an Irish musical. Lovely, funny, touching and trauma-free.

See you in August.

Françoise

Are you a helping professional with a story to tell? Have you struggled with, conquered, rollercoasted and danced with compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma during the course of your career? Do you have some insights and stories you would be willing to share? Maybe you have some strategies that have made a significant difference for you and have allowed you to remain healthy and well in this career?

I am writing a book on helpers and CF and am looking to interview nurses, social workers, teachers, doctors, lawyers and helpers of all kinds who would be willing to contribute to this project.

How it will work: you have the choice of remaining anonymous or being identified, as you wish. If you start the process saying you are comfortable with your name being used, you will still get to preview the material before it goes to press and can decide to amend/edit/remove any identifiers you are not comfortable with. You are in the driver's seat.

You will have the option to be interviewed by phone (or in person if you live close enough to me) and I will record our conversation, or to fill in a questionnaire that I will send you via email, after which I may do a telephone interview to follow up on some key points. If you are completely comfortable with being public about this process, I may request for videotaping, but again you are in the driver's seat and I will not use any material without your express written permission.

Curious? Potentially Interested? Have questions? Call me: 613-547-3247 or email: whp at cogeco.ca (you have to change the at to an @ - this is just a way to block spam robots).

I have written elsewhere in this blog about my frustrations with the highly variable quality of continuing education for helping professionals.

One of the primary reasons for which my friend Robin and I created the CF workshops in 2001 was to offer something that we would enjoy attending. We had been to dozens of training courses that promised (but failed) to deliver tools and strategies that we as clinicians were starving for. Since, in addition to this, I spent my entire early school life bored out of my mind (reading novels on my lap to survive from Grades 1-10), I have become a rather tough workshop participant. No, that's not entirely true, I am very polite. I may not say much at the workshop per se, but truth is I am internally drumming my fingers in exasperation and writing cribs notes for a future novel or next week's groceries on my lap.

All of this lengthy preamble to say that it was with very low expectations that I enrolled for a one day course on assessment tools for trauma work last week. I arrived at the workshop feeling neutral, hoping to learn something. In fact, it turned out to be a wonderful training day where I learned a lot and was attentive and awake to the instructor the entire day.

The first 10 Minutes

There are several things that the instructor did in the first 10 minutes that indicated to me that this was going to be a good workshop. First, she drew us in by sharing some information about the type of client cases that she sees. Brief storytelling and relevant case examples are always great ways to start, in my opinion.

Secondly, she expressed concern (and therefore offered validation) that the material we were going to work with was potentially very dry and may not be easy to digest in a one day intensive format. Yet she taught us how to use the tools with highly informative case examples and drew us in to a rather dry topic.

Thirdly, she had mastery - she has been teaching on this topic for many years, and her expertise anchored the workshop.

Finally, she was very genuine and confidant about her material and her work.

A few Key Things to observe

If you are a trainer yourself, or interested in becoming a trainer, I would invite you to pay close attention to a few key things during the next workshop you attend:

1) Observe the first ten minutes of the workshop: How does the presenter draw you in? How does she set the stage for the day?

2) Does the trainer deliver on the promised deliverables?

3) Pacing of the day: respecting agreed upon times for breaks/lunch etc.

4) Staying focused on the task at hand - not allowing questions from the audience to derail the workshop yet being able to answer them succinctly and effectively

5) Genuineness

6) Warmth

7) Mastery of the topic: Confidence and Competence

I lucked out last week - the trainer had the competence and confidence to deliver a good workshop. Competence came from her wealth of experiences as a trauma specialist, (and clearly top notch clinical training) and confidence came from doing what she loves and doing it very well (training others in trauma work).

8) Sense of humour

9) Approachability

That's my quick list. Not all good trainers are warm and approachable, but it sure makes for a nice learning environment.

So, if you are trauma workers, maybe you want to know who this was after all this?

Good take a look at my recommended list of trainers, her name and workshops are listed: Natalie Zlodre at the Hincks in Toronto. A job well done in this learning curmudgeon's opinion.

If you would like to view a 1.5 hour talk on CF/VT, here is yours truly at the Ontario Harm Reduction Conference in Ottawa in March 2008. If you like the content of the video, share it with your pals, and please give my contact information along with it: email: whp at cogeco.ca, blog and website addresses.

www.ohtnmedia.org/ohrdp/conf_2008/video_07/

If you are potentially interested in hiring me to come present to your agency, this will give you an idea of my style although this was not an interactive workshop given that it was really short, and it should also be mentioned that my train was late and I arrived at the conference 8 minutes before starting the talk so I was a little frazzled. The cab driver who picked me up at the train station said to me "Hello! Where are you going?" and I said "Oh, I am SO late, please take me to the Delta, I am supposed to give a talk in 10 minutes" and he turned around in his seat, looked me straight in the eyes and said "I WILL get you there in time, I promise you" and off we went, on the most hair raising taxi ride I've ever had in Ottawa (that's not saying much though, as I used to live in NYC and once had a yellow cab burn all 24 red lights we encountered to get us home). But I digress.

If you know of good multimedia resources on CF out there, email me or write a comment to the blog. My goal is the create a "one stop shop" for Compassion Fatigue Solutions and the more resources we can find and share, the better.

I am going off to Toronto today to attend a workshop (rather than deliver one, which is a nice change). This will be on Trauma Assessment in preparation for the Three day Crisis Intervention training that I offer along with Dr Mike Condra in October here in Kingston: www.crisisinstitute.com

Image from treehuggingfamily.com
It's been wonderfully slow here in Kingston during the last couple of weeks. Kids are out of school, enjoying action-packed day camps, coming home completely exhausted (instead of wired and grumpy which is how they are when they come home from school, which makes you wonder about school but that's for a whole other blog that I'm sure already exists).

We have had time and energy (or rather I have, they always have the energy) to make homemade ice cream, popsicles, bread, and butter, just for fun. The kids were laughing at this burst of homemaking inspiration I showed and said "what's next mom? candles? soap? our own wool?" I told an academic friend of ours (who self declares himself to be a real A-type personality) about making butter and he almost fell off his chair laughing. He simply could not imagine ever making butter in his whole life. It just seemed like a complete waste of time to him.

When things slow down, I am always struck by the energy that is available to do the extras in life. If I walk in the door at 530pm after a long day at work and the kids greet me with "mommy, can we paint?" I sometimes feel like running away back into my car (or bursting into tears perhaps) and sometimes I feel completely relaxed and would happily paint/build a lego robot/call a friend and chat about their problem or any other extra activity like that.

So, what determines if it's going be a "let's paint" kind of day, or a "leave me alone" kind of day? The kids are the same kids on both occasion. The difference lies, of course, in the adult and how depleted/tired/overextended that adult is... the kids are rarely any different from the last time they suggested something spontaneous and active.

The comedian/positive psychologist Loretta Laroche says on the topic of dinner and good food: "What do you smell when you come home from work? The microwave?"

Is this totally obvious to you? Do you have the self awareness to be able to gauge your level of depletion on your way home from work? Have you identified what activities are more or less depleting for you? Is it direct client work? Teaching? admin and meetings? Is some type of client work more depleting than other kinds of client work? Have you made anything from scratch lately? Or maybe you are someone who needs to get out of the kitchen and stop making everything from scratch. I had a client who used to feel she had to bake something for every special event at her son's school, and bring in a craft project and some other cool and creative activity. All until one day, the teacher asked her to stop as she was making all the other parents feel bad and it was overwhelming the teacher! This client had a full time job and two young kids and was running like a hamster in a wheel. So her homework was in fact to stop making everything from scratch...

Have a great Slow week, if you can.