The Certified Compassion Fatigue course is designed by Dr. Eric Gentry to provide participants with the skills and knowledge to meet Evergreen Certifications educational requirements for the CCFP certification. This course includes a wide array of information and skills to help caregivers combat compassion fatigue and develop professional resiliency skills to be maximally functional under the emotional demands of their work environment.

This is an intermediate-level certification and course and is open to any care giving professional or volunteer. By becoming a certified compassion fatigue professional you will be able to recapture your sense of mission, purpose, hope and joy as well as recognize compassion fatigue symptoms in your office.

The course is offered in a distance-learning format using multiple delivery techniques. Participants will be asked to watch a series of three Compassion Fatigue Certification Professional Training programs, totaling five and a half hours. Participants will be provided with a training manual and will be responsible to acquire and read the seminal literature associated with compassion fatigue.

 

Criterion 1

• Understanding of the historical developments in the field of caregiving that gave rise to the concept of compassion fatigue (e.g., diagnosis of PTSD being included in DSM-III, Yael Danielli, vicarious trauma, burnout research, Beth Stamm, Charles Figley, etc)
  1. Review of the history and seminal contributors to the development of compassion fatigue

Criterion 2

• Ability to articulate the etiology of compassion fatigue through its two primary components: secondary traumatic stress and burnout
  1. Discussion of secondary traumatic stress and work-related stress developed through patient/client interactions
  2. Discussion of burnout and work-related stress developed through professional’s interaction in the high-demand health care environment

Criterion 3

• Clear understanding of the potential symptoms and effects associated with compassion fatigue
  1. Review of the spectrum of symptoms/negative effects associated with compassion fatigue

Criterion 4

• Skilled administration and interpretation of compassion fatigue assessment instruments for self and others with primary focus upon the Pro-QOL (Stamm, 2005)
  1. Experiential processing through the administration, scoring and interpretation of the Pro-QOL 5

Criterion 5

• Awareness of and ability to narrate one’s own personal/professional history that has lead to negative effects associated with professional and/or volunteer caregiving
  1. Discussion of the use of personal compassion fatigue narrative as a process of resolving symptoms for self and others
  2. Exercise: Writing personal compassion fatigue narrative

Criterion 6

• Understand the role that perceived threat and sympathetic nervous system dominance play in the generation of compassion fatigue symptoms and, conversely, the role of self-regulation in the amelioration of current effects and prevention of future effects
  1. Watch program "Tools for Hope"

Criterion 7

• Identify the process (i.e., “infection”) of secondary traumatic stress-how does a professional become gradually symptomatic when working with traumatized and suffering others?
  1. Didactic presentation on the process by which witnessed trauma produces stress symptoms in the observer

Criterion 8

• Be aware of how to use (a) Connection/Support; (b) Relaxation, and (c) narrative to resolve current symptoms and to prevent future effects associated with secondary traumatic stress
  1. Active ingredients for resolving traumatic stress
  2. Application if these ingredients to secondary traumatic stress

Criterion 9

• Knowing methods to resolve current and prevent future effects of burnout in professional caregiving contexts
  1. Discussion of how the perceptual reality (instead of the empirical reality) is the cause of burnout symptoms
  2. How to mature perception to lessen negative effects and to heighten resiliency

Criterion 10

• Skilled application of CBT tools (e.g., relaxation, exposure and perceptual change) to lessen the effects of compassion fatigue in one’s own life
• 1. Discussion of utilization of CBT tools to lessen effects of compassion fatigue
  2. Experiential: Learning of specific applications

Criterion 11

• Appreciate the role of intentionality and principle-based caregiving (i.e., internal locus of control) as a method for symptom amelioration and resiliency
  1. Didactic presentation on understanding how increased compassion fatigue symptoms produce increased reactivity in care professionals
  2. Discussion of shifting from reactivity to intentionality as key skill for resiliency
  3. Experiential: Development of Personal Mission Statement

Criterion 12

• Ability to understand and articulate the effects of compassion fatigue as being failed or thwarted professional maturation
  1. “Making sense of symptoms” and appreciating this process of maturation and resiliency as primary treatment for compassion fatigue

Criterion 13

• Ability to understand and articulate the specific processes, trajectory and tasks associated with professional maturation and how developing these skills enhance resiliency
  1. Discussion of the difference in practices and perceptions of an “adolescent” care professional vs. a “mature” care professional

Criterion 14

• Comprehend and articulate a model of professional resiliency that allows the care provider to be healthy and maximally functional independent of environmental “demands” (internal vs. external control)
  1. Discussion of this important concept of moving control from external (victim) to internal (resiliency) as primary mechanism for professional maturation

Criterion 15

• Recognize five (5) key resiliency skills for the prevention of compassion fatigue and how to implement these skills towards the prevention of negative work-related effects
  1. Self-regulation
  2. Intentionality
  3. Perceptual Maturation
  4. Connection/Support
  5. Self-Care/Revitalization

Criterion 16

• Demonstrate to ability to design a self-directed professional resiliency plan
  1. Experiential: Complete self-directed resiliency plan coordinated with the five resiliency skills

 

1. Describe the principles of compassion fatigue and resiliency practices to other professionals and your clients to accelerate treatment
2. Develop a comprehensive knowledge of compassion fatigue by discovering the causes, symptoms/effects, treatments and resiliency strategies for potentially debilitating condition
3. Explain the neuro-physiology of compassion fatigue and the role that the autonomic nervous system plays in creating, exacerbating and maintaining the negative effects from our work
4. Implement skills to self-regulate your autonomic nervous system and immediately eradicate the effects of stress
5. Develop a mastery of the concepts, principles and practices of prevention and resiliency with compassion fatigue and woe-related stress sufficient to train other professionals
6. List the five (5) evidence-based resiliency skills proven to lessen compassion fatigue symptoms and prevent future symptomS.