CAOT-BC Pediatric Practice Network Meeting - (free for members, $20 + tax for others)

Date: April 25, 2018

Time: 6:00pm-7:30pm Pacific Time

Location: Webinar

Topic: Compassion Fatigue 

Presenter: Jan Spilman, MEd, RCC, Compassion Fatigue & Chronic Sorrow Specialist 
Known as “an outstanding adult educator … who presents with heart and energy”, Compassion Fatigue Specialist, Jan Spilman, helps people-who-help-people to live well with the stress of their personal and professional care-giving. 
Thirty years as a helper – first as a coronary care nurse and CVT surgical nurse-manager, then as a mental health nurse, then as a trauma and loss therapist and adult educator in private practice, then as family caregiver for her husband and finally as a Compassion Fatigue and Chronic Sorrow Specialist – give Jan’s presentations authenticity and a depth of understanding. She offers creative, evidence-based and anecdotal strategies for building resilience to the serious “costs of caring”. 

Description: While we can only scratch the surface in an hour, this presentation will provide a brief introduction to Compassion Fatigue (CF), the natural trauma-exposure response experienced by many helpers who hear about others’ trauma, loss and suffering in the course of their work. CF can be defined as “fatigued compassion”, symptoms of posttraumatic stress culminating in a loss of capacity for empathy and emotional withdrawal from the very people we are trying to help. 

We will look at a simple model of CF, learn the difference between burnout and CF, track the 5 phases of CF development, use an informal tool to explore our current CF risk and briefly discuss some protective tools for living with others’ trauma stories. For those interested, Jan will be offering a full day CF workshop at the Granville Island Hotel Monday, May 7th from 9-4. Registration brochures are available at caregiverwellness@shaw.ca. (The registration deadline is April 22). 

Please note: Our registration process has changed. Instead of a CAOT-BC confirmation email, you will instead receive a confirmation email from GoToWebinar at least one week prior to the webinar date. This email will include webinar details and instructions for accessing the webinar.