Healing Hearts Hurt: Understanding Compassion Fatigue and How to Plan for it and Prevent it
Estimated time to complete activity: 90 minutes
Target Audience
This activity has been designed to meet the educational needs of nurses, physicians, and other health and legal professionals involved in the care of victims of sexual assault and domestic violence.
Statement of Need/Program Overview
Although compassion fatigue is a predictable response in “helping” professions, it is rarely addressed in a systematic an ongoing basis. This webinar emphasizes that compassion fatigue is a preventable and natural consequence of working with traumatized populations. Understanding it, planning for it, and preventing it can increase the sustainability of employees devoted to this work, such as healthcare workers, law enforcement and military personnel, teachers, and social workers. In this webinar, participants will learn what compassion fatigue is, how to identify and describe its signs and symptoms, and how to develop self-care practices.
Educational Objectives
After completing this activity, the participant should be better able to:
1. Define compassion fatigue
2. Describe 3 signs and symptoms of compassion fatigue
3. Describe factors in the “culture of care” that can perpetuate compassion fatigue
4. Develop a plan for self-care practices
Faculty
Joan “Ecoee” Rooney, MSN, RN-BC
Ochsner Medical Center, Director of Nursing Professional Development and Evidence-Based Practice
Faculty Bio
As a sexual assault nurse examiner (SANE) from 1999—2012, a SANE faculty member, curriculum author, and a certified compassion fatigue educator through the Figley Institute, Ms. Rooney possesses deep expertise in recognizing the signs and symptoms of compassion fatigue and how to address it. Ms. Rooney has presented this topic as part of SANE courses delivered by the Louisiana State Emergency Nurse Association and she currently teaches about compassion fatigue at the Ochsner Medical Center— where she works to draw the connections between the effects of compassion fatigue on healthcare workers and ways to address and manage associated risks. Ms. Rooney has worked in professional development for 11 years and has developed preceptor programs for other health care systems. She is certified as a Compassion Fatigue Educator through the Figley Institute and has contributed to the new core curriculum for Nursing Professional Development. Ms. Rooney is ANCC Certified as a Professional Development Nurse.