This is a 50 minute facilitated session with 10 minutes for self-reflection.

Vicarious trauma is what happens to your cognitive, physical, emotional, and spiritual health when you listen to traumatic stories day after day or respond to traumatic situations while having to control your own reactions. We bear witness to this traumatic event through second hand exposure, and consequently are at risk of taking on some of that emotional pain.

This session aims to provide participants with an understanding of what vicarious trauma and compassion fatigue are, what they look like behaviourally, and how it can impact them inside and outside of work. This session will also provide participants with some practical strategies for building and maintain resilience so as to prevent the adverse impact of vicarious trauma.

Learning Outcomes

• Build awareness of the impact of high risk work
• Differentiate between Vicarious Trauma, Stress & Burnout and how these play out in the workplace
• Develop tools and strategies to respond to Vicarious Trauma, Stress & Burnout
• Learn strategies to help build and maintain resilience and self-care
• Create awareness of the support and resources available

Content

• Identifying some of the typical risk factors in the workplace associated with traumatic and critical incidents and their physiological and psychological impact
• Learning about vicarious trauma and compassion fatigue and the associated symptoms
• Raise awareness around how organisational culture can be a risk or protective factor for developing vicarious trauma
• Understanding how vicarious trauma impacts our levels of stress, how it can lead to burnout, and how stress and burnout play out in the workplace
• Developing tools & strategies to deal with compassion fatigue, stress, & burnout
• Discussing resilience and identifying the characteristics of resilience
• Learning how to implement mental health strategies to build and maintain resilience