Beyond Self-Care: Understanding Vicarious Trauma & Supporting Resilience

The act of caring is powerful and healing, and many of us in the helping professions see our work as a calling and not just a job. Given the level of individual and community trauma that so many of the youth and families that we work with have survived, the role of youth service practitioners is more important now than ever. Vicarious trauma, also known as compassion fatigue or secondary traumatic stress, is what happens when human beings have empathic connections with others who have experienced trauma, and it’s an on-the-job hazard for all helping professionals. How can we manage the impact of vicarious trauma in our work and our lives? In this virtual 2-hour interactive workshop, we will focus on understanding common ways that our brains and bodies respond to primary, collective and vicarious trauma, and how that can affect behavior and relationships. We will give special attention to building sustainable self-care practices. We will focus on bringing vicarious trauma awareness into the culture of your program or organization, including discussions within supervision and team meetings. Participants will learn to… • Define trauma and vicarious trauma • Make a plan to incorporate at least one self-care strategy into daily practice • Gain tools for building vicarious trauma awareness in their organization Facilitated by: Elizabeth Speck, PhD After attending the session, you will receive a certificate of attendance via email along with the materials shared in the session. We look forward to having you join us!