Compassion Fatigue Solutions

I apologise for the longish silence but I have been busy writing up a report for an agency. I can now return to posting weekly as is my goal.

I invite you to visit the Compassion Fatigue Awareness Project: www.compassionfatigue.org and browse through the resources available. The web site has, in particular, good resources for animal care workers (click on Resources to find links and articles.)

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On Managers and Compassion Fatigue

Supervisors and managers who work in the helping fields end up in a tough spot: Most of the management staff I have met over the years are extremely concerned about the wellbeing of their employees and feel stuck between their staff's needs (for a reduced workload, for policies that allow for more flexibility in the schedule, for concrete actions that recognise the reality of compassion fatigue in the workplace) and the need to ensure that service delivery continues and that client needs are met.

I have lost count of the times I have had a manager, almost in tears, come to me at the end of a workshop and say: "How do we, the managers, juggle it all? How do we care for our staff without burning out ourselves?"

The answer, of course, isn't simple, but there are some strategies that can help. This was my motivation in bringing Dr Pat Fisher to present a two day course for Managers in Kingston in May. I will be carrying out an interview with Pat Fisher in the weeks to come, so come back if you are curious to know more. And if you live near Kingston, do consider enrolling for the course. It will be an extremely valuable two day workshop specifically designed for managers and supervisors.

Now, in terms of what I'm up to today, I'm going to play badminton with kids this afternoon, and then I will likely not be able to resist watching part of the Oscars before falling asleep (those long boring speeches where everyone thanks their lawyer, stylist and publicist, yawn. Why not take this opportunity to advocate for a charitable cause? Maybe one of the winners will do just that tonight and surprise us).

Next week is the Train the Trainer workshop which I am very much looking forward to as it's an opportunity to work for two days with a small group of dedicated helpers from highly varied backgrounds. This time around, there are psychologists, family doctors, nurses, social workers and counsellors from a wide range of agencies such as hospitals, veterans affairs, public health, children's services and other community agencies. If you are interested in this training programme, please note that the June session is already half full.

Hope you have a good week!

This is a quick one as I am about to jump on a train for Brampton, Ontario. I have been asked to go run a series of focus groups for a very forward-thinking large community agency who wish to prepare their managers and supervisors to respond appropriately to staff presenting with concerns surrounding compassion fatigue. I am really looking forward to hearing their thoughts and concerns about this important issue. Then it's Montreal for dinner with my siblings and nieces (always a wonderful treat) and a workshop to the National Parole Board. Then back on the train for a pitstop at home to kiss hubby and kids and change clothes and off to Toronto for a workshop with special needs educational assistants. I will be very happy to sleep in my own bed by the end of the week.

I have had the very rare opportunity to spend part of the weekend completely on my own, sans children and sans partner (they were away visiting relatives) which is very nice but also very odd, for those of you who have had children I'm sure you can relate? So this is what I did with my free time: I went to play badminton with a friend, went for a very long walk around our town, and went to see the movie Slumdog Millionaire last night (very disturbing first part but the rest is very good and worth staying through the difficult stuff, I thought) and then out for wings and beer until the ungodly hour of, gasp 11:30pm. Crazy night out on the town...

I also came across a fun blog for those of you interested in cooking with a crockpot and thereby saving on energy costs and lowering your grocery bills: take a look at www.crockpot365.blogspot.com
Freelance writer Stephanie decided to spend a year cooking with her crockpot and you can find her amusing reflections and recipes on this site.

Ok, off to the races. Wishing you a healthy week.

Photo by Sakurai Midori - Autumn Fruit and Vegetables Japan from wikimedia commons

On the lovely topic of food:

One of my very first memories is watching my Inuit babysitter roll and fry her daily bannock when I was 2 or 3 years old. I can still conjure up the smell and taste of that hot bread now. Fresh deep fried bannock tastes like nothing else you'll ever try, it's just one of those things. You likely have foods like that too from somewhere in your past?

I have always been passionate about food. I'm not sure why, though I recall that when I was young my mother and my aunt used to love planning meals together, poring over recipes and trying new and unusual things. I remember one hilarious day when my mom and I bought one of each of the new tropical fruit that had just arrived in the grocery stores. This was in the early 1980s and we had never seen these strange things before nor did we know how to tell whether they were ripe (they weren't - we ended up feeling like we had fur growing on our tongues and racing for water but laughing our heads off.)

My mother was also always a strong believer in healthy eating and tried to the best of her ability to offer us fresh produce. I am not sure how she managed that during the years that we lived in a place where the ship came only once or twice a year with our groceries but she soldiered on: she made home made yogurt, sprouted beans, granola...

Anyhow, this rather lengthy introduction is to talk about a fascinating radio show I heard on Thursday. If you speak French, you can skip the rest of this post and simply go to www.radio-canada.ca/radio/christiane and look for Christiane Charette's January 29th interview with Dr Richard Béliveau.

Dr Béliveau is a biochemist who works as a research scientist at two Montreal Universities. He is an expert in cancer prevention and is also a gifted communicator who aims to bring his lab findings to our dinner tables.
He has written three books on cancer prevention and nutrition:
Foods to Fight Cancer, Cooking with Foods that Fight Cancer and his most recently released Eating Well, Living Well: Everyday Preventive Medicine which will be available in English in the Fall of 2009. He also writes a weekly column in the Journal de Montréal which you can read online:

Here are some findings:

-Reaching your healthy weight reduces your chance of developing diabetes by 90%
-26% of Canadian children and teens are overweight
-Excess abdominal fat is linked to certain types of cancers (the rates are staggering: 75% of colon cancers are nutrition related).

Dr Béliveau recommends five key strategies to improve your health and reduce the risk of cancer

1) Quit smoking
2) Exercise at least 30 minutes per day
3) Aim to reach and keep your healthy weight
4) Eat a large amount of fruit and vegetables each day
5) Eliminate junk food

Key foods to add to your diet:

-Any vegetable from the cabbage family: broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage...
-Garlic and onions
-Soy products (soybeans, tofu)
-Turmeric (1 tsp per day)
-Green Tea
-Berries
-Omega 3 fatty foods (salmon, walnuts, flax seeds)
-Tomatoes
-Citrus fruit
-1 glass of red wine per day
-Two squares of 70% dark chocolate per day

Of course you know all that already, right? But are you walking the walk?

My children were thrilled when I announced that from now on, desert would have to be chocolate!