The Resilient Healer: Taking Care of Yourself While Caring for Others

Location:  Billerica, MA - Courtyard by Marriott, Billerica

"Compassion fatigue...vicarious traumatization...burnout..." We've learned about them, explored their role in our work and our lives, and changed our self-care strategies. But what comes next?

As compassionate and empathic helping professionals, we can become so consumed by the day-to-day demands of our work-physically, emotionally, and spiritually-that maintaining a balance of compassion for the people we work with and caring for ourselves can be difficult. Not losing sight of the larger vision, meaning, and significance of our work is crucial.

This workshop will help you recognize problematic symptoms and create solution-focused tasks to alleviate and prevent stress. We will explore ways to nurture our own sense of purpose, potential, and vision, creating opportunities for reflection and renewal. Various personal, professional, and workplace coping strategies will be explored, such as creative self-expression, relaxation activities, mindfulness, guided imagery, use of humor, as well as use of rituals and decompression routines. Workshop participants will:

• Self-assess for compassion fatigue, burnout, and vicarious traumatization
• Learn strategies to mitigate compassion fatigue or burnout
• Reconnect with their own sense of deeper meaning and purpose that led them to this work in the first place
• Examine ways to maintain a sense of possibility, vision, and significance in their professional and personal lives

This workshop will be of interest to those working in clinical and residential settings as well as educational and health care settings. Workshop format includes lecture, video, interactive small group discussion, and activities.

Instructor:

Laura Basili, Ph.D., has a private practice and teaches at Middlebury College in Vermont. For 10 years she worked with children, families, and trained staff at Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Laura trains and consults nationally with schools, hospices, hospitals, mental health centers, and community-based agencies on illness, loss, bereavement, and self-care for caregivers. She also facilitates Schwartz Center Rounds on Compassionate Care at Fletcher Allen Healthcare in Burlington, VT. Laura is an inspirational and dynamic speaker. Her workshops are infused with her joie de vivre and heartfelt storytelling.