Breakout Sessions - Detailed Outline

June 4th, 2013

1:15-2:30pm Session A:  Soul Stations (a little first aid for your soul) with Christa Dales Donnelly

After 30 years working in social services agencies, both in Developmental Services and Ontario Works, Christa Dales Donnelly has experienced Compassion Fatigue and all the fallout from it. Christa developed her business "Compassion For You" in order to provide awareness and support for agencies, professionals and families that are involved with the rewarding, heart wrenching, frustrating, life affirming and soul sucking endeavour of providing human services. At the conference, Christa will engage you in fun, interactive and thoughtful activities while affording you the opportunity to learn and share ideas that help us cope when our "give a damn" is busted.

1:15-2:30pm Session B: Running a Business from the Heart and the Hip: Balancing the joys and predicaments of being your own boss with Robin Cameron

An informal talk with a serial entrepreneur who believes that with a little bit of creativity you can be the best supervisor you’ve ever had and avoid becoming a tyrannical mess!  Bring your questions and real life examples, or show up with fears and reservations, heckle, take notes, come as you are to this fun and relaxed business bootcamp. “My clients face a deluge of unrelenting stress, we take the best of coaching and counselling and with a little humour thrown in, work to lessen the hard stuff and make room for more fun and inspiration” Robin Cameron is a therapeutic coach who works with helping professionals and students who desire more freedom and room to be creative in their work lives. She can be found at www.lifeinspired.ca

1:15-2:30pm Session C: Françoise Mathieu - Train the Trainer Booster 

This is a booster session for certified compassion fatigue trainers who have trained with Françoise in the past. This is an opportunity to hear about what's new, share ideas and strategies and network.

3:00-4:30pm Session A: How an organization implemented a CF initiative in their workplace: Success stories and strategies with Alexandra Fortier and Françoise Mathieu

What would you do if you were given carte blanche to design and implement a compassion fatigue initiative in your workplace?

This is exactly what happened to Alexandra Fortier and her colleagues a few years ago: Alexandra is a social worker and a program manager for children's mental health at the Centre Francophone de Toronto. Alexandra will share the Five Steps to implementing a CF initiative and answer any questions you may have about your own organizational challenges. Alexandra Fortier is Program Manager for Children’s Mental Health at the Centre francophone de Toronto. Her experience varies from systemic intervention of incestuous sexual abuse, Children’s Aid, families in Crisis, as well as clinical and program supervision. Currently, she’s on the Advisory Committee of the Ontario Centre of Excellence for Child and youth Mental Health. Her interest for Compassion Fatigue and Vicarious Trauma stems from the very beginning of her career. In 2009, she was given the opportunity to create a Committee at her current Agency that addresses systematically Compassion Fatigue and Vicarious Trauma to all the staff. The Committee also has the mandate to implement an organizational culture to help prevent negative effects that may affect various professionals.

3:00-4:30pm Session B: Mindfulness as a Practice of Self-Reflection and Connection
This session was one of last year's most highly rated breakouts. See what the fuss was all about! with Valerie Spironello

Mindfulness gives us the opportunity to ‘drop’ into our life and begin to explore the stories we carry that impact on how we ‘show up’ in the world. In this session we will explore the concept of mindfulness and how it can help mitigate the impact of our work as helper’s while being present and fully engaged with those we serve.

Participants will have the opportunity to engage in a mindfulness meditation practice.

Valerie Spironello has been a social worker for over 20 years working in a variety of settings including wellness counselling, health care, palliative care, family therapy, child welfare, family violence. Throughout her career, Valerie recognized the importance of addressing challenges holistically. She uses and teaches mindfulness in her clinical practice. Valerie is an Assistant Professor (PT) with the Department of Family Medicine, McMaster University, teaching and providing counselling for health-care providers, medical students and residents with an emphasis on developing self-care and work-life balance. She provides ongoing workshops and support to child welfare agencies as well as other social service groups. Valerie runs a Hamilton based private practice called Choose Wellness (choosewellness.ca) working to help others to improve their well-being. Valerie also works as an Associate at Compassion Fatigue Solutions.

3:00-4:30pm Session C: Taking Control Back from Stress: Key strategies from a top level personal trainer with Renee Whitney

When your health becomes your last priority you can become drained, physically uncomfortable and stuck. Take care of your physical well being first and not only do you transform your body but you feel more ALIVE!!  Your relationships, work and life in general all become easier and more enjoyable. Most people know this & want this, but sometimes find it hard to stay on track when “life happens.” This is why I created FOCUS Personal Fitness Studio. I believe that everyone can benefit from proper guidance, support, and motivation. Our role at Focus is to provide these tools in a welcoming environment where individuals can discover their own personal reasons for wanting to live a healthier, happier life.  

June 5th, 2013

1:15-2:30 Session A: Creating Vision Boards for Creative Wellness with Supria Karmakar. Back by popular demand, Supria Karmakar returns with a new expressive arts experience for anyone interested in mapping out their plan for wellness.

The power of visualization is well documented. The imagination has the extraordinary capacity to shape reality. Visualization is the intentional and directed use of your imagination to shape your reality. In this workshop you will be learning how to create vision boards that can have a positive impact of all areas of your life. Each participant will create their own vision board for their own health & wellness, using the tools of collaging and intentionally directing the imagination to shape their reality.

Supria has been a social worker and community developer for 16 years. She has facilitated numerous community program meetings, events, conferences and workshops within the social service health sectors. She currently is a full-time artist and facilitator of creative wellness services. Pulling together her passion for the arts and creativity with facilitation and social work processes, Supria creates an environment for great transformation and awareness. Through art, creativity and play, Supria provides a program that encourages her clients to discover more about how to enhance personal, and team wellness. Today she has made it her mission to share this passion with others; she teaches and facilitates the creative process to those that want to experience a creative retreat and revival. 
Click here to visit Supria's Website and here to read her Blog

1:15-2:30 Session B: Organizational Strategies - early intervention and risk assessment of secondary trauma, compassion fatigue and burnout in the workplace  
with Dr Leslie Anne Ross 

This workshop will highlight lessons learned in Community Mental Health and Child Welfare on implementing training, policy, and workforce development strategies to address prevention and intervention of secondary traumatic stress, compassion fatigue and burnout. Results of a U.S. national survey conducted by the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) on this issue will be discussed as well as highlights of a county wide initiative in Los Angeles, CA to create trauma-informed systems of care.  We will explore prevention, intervention, and workforce wellness approaches to address organizational change, supervision, training, and risk management.

Dr. Ross is currently the Vice President of the Leadership Center at Children’s Institute, Inc. in Los Angeles, CA where she oversees programs in research, program evaluation, training, and implementation of evidence-based practices for the treatment of Child Trauma, and Family Violence.  She is the Program Director for the Child Trauma Center at CII as a participating site of National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) and is part of the NCTSN Child Welfare Breakthrough Series Collaborative where she has partnered with L.A. Dept. of Child Services in implementing prevention and intervention programs on Secondary Traumatic Stress and fostering trauma-informed systems collaboration.  She is also part of the NCTSN Task Force on the Core Curriculum for Child Trauma (CCCT) and a faculty member of the NCTSN CCCT National Breakthrough Series Learning Collaborative.  Dr. Ross is co-chair of the NCTSN Secondary Traumatic Stress collaborative working group which focused on prevention and intervention of the occupational risk of Secondary Trauma associated with working with children and families exposed to trauma. In addition, she is co-author of “Responding to Domestic Violence: The Whole Person Approach” group treatment model for adult victims and their children, and a member of the clinical faculty at UCLA Geffen School of Medicine.

1:15-2:30 Session C: Change Leadership - Helping People Overcome Barriers to Change with Maryse Lepage

Organizational health and a climate of engagement hinge on shaping positive and productive change experiences for employees. Strong leaders play a critical role during successful transitions; they demonstrate active and visible support, they open up communication channels, they help resolve resistance and remove barriers to change. In this workshop, participants will learn about five dimensions of change leadership, focus on a framework to identify barriers to change and practice with a tool designed to help in coaching individuals and teams through transitions. 

The workshop will be based on a training module developed in the scope of a leadership program at MD Physician Services where the development of change capabilities has been very effective in promoting change readiness across the organization and in contributing to a healthy organizational climate. 

Take away material: Template and guidelines for using the framework as a tool. Overview of the change leader role and corresponding competencies. A list of resources available to continue the change leadership journey. Target audience: Managers, Team Leaders, Project Managers, Executives. 

Maryse Lepage is a Prosci® certified Change Manager, a certified Integral Coach® and an Associate Certified Coach (ACC) with the International Coach Federation. With 15 year of project and operations management experience, Maryse understands the challenges and opportunities inherent to times of transition and increasing demands.  A deep interest in the dynamics of change and learning coupled with a desire to make a difference in the community has led her to develop a coaching approach to change practices that is well suited to the realities of community organizations. In addition to her private practice, Maryse works as change practitioner and leadership coach on the Organizational Development team of MD Physician Services. She is a volunteer Board of Director member with the Elizabeth Fry Society of Ottawa.