Compassion Fatigue Solutions

My son turns 8 today (which means that 8 years go I was doing something far less pleasant than eating an avocado/feta and green salad with balsamic vinegar for lunch which is what I just did.) So this morning when he woke up, with his crazy shaggy beach boy blonde hair standing up in all directions, we snuggled on the couch and looked at photos of his first few weeks on this earth. Moments like that are sweet and precious, and I hope that you too take time to savour little things in your daily life.

Another one: the magnolias are in full bloom here in Kingston. I had a chance to admire a huge "tulip tree" as my friend calls them, during my morning run.

And finally: making a little sand creation and learning to take time to chill out and enjoy the moment. I was so struck during our holiday last week by the fact that even my 10 year old daughter had to "decompress" before being able to just enjoy our time there. On day one she was relentlessly commanding us all to "let's go here, let's go there, ok now what next, I can't wait for this and that" until I said to her "you know, the whole point of being here is to just relax and not have an agenda. Our biggest plan each day is going to be figuring out what kind of ice cream we want ok?" and eventually, by day 3, she too was able to adopt a more relaxed attitude. Although I think some of this is in her personality, I think it also has to do with the pace of daily life during a normal school week (and she's not even attending one fifth of what all her friends seem to be doing - when did it become a good idea to enroll kids in two sports, music lessons AND swimming lessons? Anyhow, I've already blogged on that way back when but it still boggles my mind.)

I think Tim Ferriss (author of the 4 hour work week discussed below) said it so well in his book. He refers to the "occasional, keep it short or get fired vacations" that many of us take, and the either hectic weekends or numbed out weekends where many of us collapse in a heap in front of the tv before starting all over again.

I am working on a life/work balance workshop that will be offered in a couple of weeks to a group in London Ontario, so I have had the opportunity to reflect on the concept of the ideal schedule (even more than I normally do, and that topic is rather an obsession of mine. I know that for some, this topic of discussion can elicit defensiveness, anger, a "must be nice to be able to go on a trip for a week" or whatever other reaction it may generate. The answer is yes, it's wonderful and we should all aim to figure out ways to balance our life in a way that allows for more of that. But I for one have learned that when I feel irritated by someone else's neat self care strategy, I am usually not truly feeling irritation, I am feeling yearning. So for example right now as I am finishing this post, we are now Sunday, it is 23 degrees and sunny outside and I have been grumpily working all morning on various presentations I have to finish. I almost never work on Sundays so this is exceptional. So, I'm going to post this and @#$%! the work, I'm going to buy some rosemary and lavender to plant in my garden. Hope you do something equally nice with your Sunday.

Françoise

I'm on vacation this week so this will be a brief entry to share a few thoughts about a book I picked up to read on hols.

It is called "The 4 hour work week" by Tim Ferriss and is on the NY Times #1 non fiction best seller's list. I have to say I am a bit conflicted about the book but I read it from cover to cover and went to his blog several times so he's clearly doing something right. The conflict is that I find this book at once fascinating and a bit unsettling. Ferriss will clearly do well in life as he's a very high energy rule breaker who loves to debunk the way things work and explore how far you can push yourself (physically, intellectually and societally, how to push the limits of all sorts of rules) but I am not sure his ideas will work for everyone. This book is really destined for those of you who have an entrepreneurial spirit and want to strike it on your own or those of you who want to explore ways of working part time.

What I particularly enjoyed were his observations of the current entrepreneurial "rat race." Ferriss' take home message is the following: in the search for MORE (more money to buy more stuff, the corporate rat race, working 70 hours a week, being trapped in the cycle of work/overtime/more work/collapse for the weekend/start again), many of us have forgotten how to live simply and focus our energy on our health and quality of our life experiences.

See his blog entry of September 4th 2007:

New Research and a Dirty Truth: Read This Before Chasing the Dollar by Tim Ferriss


"74.64% of Americans would rather get Fridays off vs. a 20% raise”

He writes: “Basically, even permanent increases in income have little effect on perceived happiness, as we compare ourselves to those above us, no matter how much progress we make. Material goods give us a short-lived happiness sugar high, and we seem committed to making ourselves miserable. [...]

“Just remember: it is entirely possible — in fact, common — to be a success in business and a failure in life”

End quote (view the article in its entirety at www.fourhourworkweek.com)

I loved that last sentence. Do you know someone who is a success in business and a failure in life?

I thought that having a full month without workshops would mean that I had a lot of catchup time to write in this blog and clean up my basement and read books and articles on things related to CF.

Well, I was wrong (and I hear my lovely husband gasp here. I very rarely admit to being wrong, to him at least.)

So what I had forgotten is that when you've been very busy for months developing and delivering workshops, everything else that was put on the back burner comes surging back clamoring for attention when you're not out there being trapped in airports and the like.

So April has been about catching up, not creating nearly as many new things as are lining up in my brain.

It has however led me to make some very important decisions that will translate into more materials being posted here in the Fall. I am going to whittle down my counselling practice to two days a week and focus even more on Compassion Fatigue Solutions as this is truly where my passion resides.

So, for the time being I am off to the Sunshine State for a one week family vacation and will start posting weekly again when catchup is complete. I have a wonderful lineup of interviews with helping professionals and more specifically CF professionals coming down the pipe.

To save you the hassle of checking whether I'm back on air, join my mailing list and I will email you a quick notice to let you know that I have posted anew: www.compassionfatigue.ca and click on join mailing list.

Before I publish my real post for this week, (which will come later on) I wanted to share a couple of things with you. This is a recent photo of yours truly and her handy-dandy assistants, hard at work preparing materials for a recent workshop I facilitated a few weeks ago. Cutie pie #2, who is 7, said "can I help you?" when he saw me come to the table with a huge pile of rather expensive colour prints that I needed to cut and paste. My first thought was "it's too much trouble to explain all the steps required to get this done, I'll just say no thanks." Then I thought "Really? Do those photos have to be professionally cut and straight, or else what, will people think lesser of me?" (still working on that perfectionism thing). Of course, the kids were delighted to help, got the job done in record time and then we all got to do something fun together like read Asterix or smurfs or whatnot. Delegating is hard because sometimes we don't have the energy to explain to someone else the key steps and sometimes we're just too grumpy and too serious. So thank you, cutie pies #1 and 2.

My wrists have completely healed so thank you for the lovely emails from those of you who expressed concern about receiving lengthy notes from me - no wrists were injured in the process! The soreness was caused by typing in bed (yes, that's just plain obviously silly to all of you but there you go.) Note to self: do not type in bed. Got it.

Creating a World Without Bullying: PREVNet 3rd Annual Conference
Thursday May 29, 2008
89 Chestnut: University of Toronto
Canada's Premier national Bullying Conference
www.prevnet.ca
Toll free: 1-866-372-2495

In the interest of full disclosure, I should tell you that one of the main organisers of this conference, Dr Wendy Craig, is a very dear friend of mine. My children love the fact that their fairy godmother is one of the world's foremost bullying expert. It goes a long way in dealing with tricky school yard problems: "oh yeah, well guess who I am going to call?"

If the past conferences are any indication, this will fill up quickly so sign up asap if you are interested.

Ok, I truly have the best job in the world.

This week, I had the opportunity to meet a large group of very attentive trauma and emergency nurses and social workers (Sunnybrooke hospital in Toronto), present to an inquisitive group of psychology graduate students (Queen's University, Kingston) and nearly 100 Special Ed teachers and counsellors who work with primary school aged children with serious behavioural and emotional difficulties (Toronto District School Board). If you want to meet a group of incredibly dedicated helpers, go visit these teachers. holey moley.

Now I know that public speaking is considered by some to be one of the most aversive experience known to (wo)man, on par with passing a kidney stone, root canal and childbirth, but I find that an incredible energy is created by groups (or, sometimes, a very awful energy, but that's not this week's experience thankfully - That will be for my memoirs..."the ten worst presentations ever").

What I enjoy the most is mapping out the day, how the energy/activities will flow, what would work best with each trade, and then adjusting it as the day unfolds to try and best meet the needs and vibe of the audience. It's actually not unlike my private practice work with military personnel. My favourite new clients are actually the most reluctant ones, you know, the 35 year old corporal who has never been to counselling and works as a radio operator and who is only here under an ultimatum from his wife? I love it. Because, really, what's the worst that can happen? and on the flip side he just might have a positive counselling experience. How wonderful would that be?


I wanted to share with you an email I recently received from a workshop participant (reprinted here with permission)where the author of the email explains her appreciation for the important distinction I make in my workshops between burnout and compassion fatigue:

The author is a registered nurse with 20 years of experience working with trauma in a spinal cord injury unit, neurological trauma intensive care unit and ER work: "[...] I can truly identify with a lot of your topic and many of the signs of compassion fatigue. I believe that is why I left the ICU dept. and am starting to develop [the symptoms of cf/vt] again now in the ER. But I keep labelling these feelings as burnout and then start to look for a new job even though I have absolutely LOVED both jobs. So I thank you in helping me to see what I now believe to be compassion fatigue, but more importantly the tools you have given me to work through this, since I truly love my job."

Receiving an email like this makes it all worthwhile, the sore wrists, the travelling and the risk one always takes when standing in front of a large crowd with a pocketful of courage and a karaoke machine. Thank you.

ps: for TDSB folks, I will post answers to your index card questions next week.

Françoise

It's official! The Train the Trainer Workshop on Compassion Fatigue is booked to run November 13-14th at the beautiful Donald Gordon Centre in Kingston.
[July 16th, 2008 - This workshop is now FULL - if you would like to be added to the mailing list for next year's training, email me clearly stating that you wish to be added to the Train the Trainer mailing list]
As an aside, I should tell you that the food at the Donald Gordon Centre is absolutely stupendous (and it's a wonderful location where participants are treated like VIPs). In fact: "The Financial Times (U.K.) has ranked the Donald Gordon Conference Centre number one in the world for food quality in a survey of international executive education centres." Link: www.dgc.queensu.ca

Great food, beautiful location. A nice starting point for a two day intensive retreat to become (or hone) your skills as a compassion fatigue trainer.

Here's more information on this upcoming workshop:

Compassion Fatigue Train the Trainer Workshop

Revised and Confirmed Dates: Thursday November 13th and Friday November 14th, 2008 at the Donald Gordon Centre in Kingston. (link: www.donaldgordoncentre.com)

**Accommodation: For those of you needing accommodation, the Donald Gordon Centre offers comfortable and affordable rooms for overnight stay. However, at the present time, there is no space on the Wednesday night (although this could very well change, and you can ask to be put on their waiting list) but there are still some beds available for the Thursday night. You should call the DGC asap if you wish to explore this option.) Otherwise, there are plenty of lovely B&Bs nearby and if you need accomodation info, I can send it to you.

Registration Form: If you decide to enroll for this event, please email me and I will send you a registration form.

Workshop Size: Spaces is limited to a maximum of 20 participants and will only run if at least 8 participants enroll (given the interest I have received after posting this for only 5 days, I am not particularly worried about it meeting the minimum number of participant requirement)

Cost: $435 plus $45 for materials which includes training manuals, handout templates and power point on CD.
Total cost: $480.00 CAN incl gst.

To Register: Send a cheque, payable to WHP, in the amount of $100.00 to 837 Princess Street, Suite 300, Kingston, On. K7L 1G8 **balance of payment ($380.00) must be paid by October 1st to secure your enrollment. Please note that the $100.00 is not refundable. Cancellation policy is on our website.

Certificates of completion will be provided.

Prerequisites: This workshop is aimed at helping professionals and educators in the helping fields. No prior Compassion Fatigue training required but a basic working knowledge of the topic would be best (by reading some of the titles listed below ahead of time).

Workshop Description: Some past participants of our one day Compassion Fatigue workshop (Walking the Walk) expressed an interest in receiving help in designing a workshop to bring back to their communities and developing skills and knowledge base to deliver compassion fatigue workshops themselves. This train the trainer workshop offers tools, handouts, strategies, training material and marketing strategies to adapt Walking the Walk to your community's specific needs (and to your own presentation style). You do not need to have attended WtheW in the past to benefit from this training.

Because of the small size of the group, we will customize certain aspects of the training to your specific needs. A questionnaire will be sent ahead of time to establish your needs/goals and objectives and aim to fulfill as many of these as possible.

Day one will be experiential (you will participate in a one day CF workshop) and Day two will discuss tools, strategies and techniques to develop and deliver the workshops on your own and become a CF educator and trainer.

What differentiates this workshop from other educational sessions out there is the extra layer of understanding and validation that we hope to convey to our workshop participants. Therefore, the train the trainer workshop is designed to take you deep first, to gain a true and thorough understanding of your own relationship to CF. Then we go into the didactic details (what to teach, how to teach) and finally talk about the mechanics of the whole process (how to customize this for your own work needs/goals etc.)

Commitment on your part:
-fill out questionnaire ahead of time and return no later than October 1st
-fill out the reflection section of the workbook before attending the workshop

Detailed outline:

We will be using the Walking the Walk training manual:

-What are Compassion Fatigue, Caregiver Stress, Vicarious Traumatization and burnout
-Signs and symptoms of CF/VT/Burnout
-Assessment tools
-Warning signs
-Resiliency skills
-Self Care Strategies
-Academy of traumatology standards of Ethics
-How to offer psychoeducation on this topic
-Experiential activities that work with audiences
-How to design your own workshop: what is your target audience
-Lessons I have learned during the past 7+ years of offering these workshops

and more...


Recommended Reading: If you would like to read ahead, I would recommend:

Transforming the pain by pearlman and saakvitne - a nice little workbook on designing VT workshops

Trauma and the Therapist by Pearlman

Secondary Traumatic Stress by Beth Stamm

Compassion Fatigue and Treating Compassion Fatigue. 2 books by Charles Figley

Help for the Helper by Babette Rothschild

50 strategies to simplify your life: Patrick Fanning

Take time for your life by Cheryl Richardson

A therapist's guide to self care by lillie weiss


I would also suggest you surf the net and read anything from the Headington Institute and Figley Institute.

A great place to start is to visit my website: www.compassionfatigue.ca and read the articles I have written (Running on empty and 12 Self Care Strategies) as well as visit my blog weekly.

Directions: For those of you interested but wondering where in the heck is Kingston, Ontario? We are midway between Toronto and Montreal and about 2 hours north of Syracuse, NY. You can fly to any of these destinations and then drive or take a train to Kingston. The easiest way to get here is to Fly to Montreal and then take the free shuttle to the train (a 5 minute ride). The train schedule can be viewed: www.viarail.ca. You can also fly to Toronto and take a 45 minute shuttle to Union train station. It is then a 2 hour train ride to Kingston.


Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.

Françoise