Compassion stress is a normal and natural response to working in a caring field -- and the field of animal care and protection is no exception. Awareness of suffering, our desire to take action to alleviate it, and the weariness that results from the volume of work and depth of caring, all lead to exhaustion and burn out if not carefully managed. This workshop will allow you to explore the signs and symptoms of compassion stress, fatigue, and burnout, and provide a variety of tools and strategies you can use to sustain involvement in a rewarding and equally challenging field. Participants will leave a manual full of strategies and tools to make the journey easier and sustainable.

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This in-person and interactive self-care workshop is geared toward all animal care professionals and volunteers, including shelter staff, animal control officers, veterinarians, vet techs, euthanasia techs, rescue workers, foster parents, wildlife rehabilitators, management, support staff, and all others involved in animal welfare.

 

At the conclusion of the workshop, attendees will be able to:

• Understand and define compassion satisfaction, secondary trauma. compassion stress, and compassion fatigue

• Recognize the symptoms and factors that can influence or trigger compassion stress and compassion fatigue

• Comprehend the compassion fatigue trajectory as well as understand how to know where one is on the scale

• Articulate and put into practice what can be done to manage job-related stress

• Assess and identify symptoms of compassion fatigue in yourself through self-assessment activities

• Build a self-care plan to reduce stress and increase compassion satisfaction (each attendee receives a participant manual with self-assessments and resources)