Espanola and Area FHT and Powassan and Area FHT organized mental health sessions for all teams in the north east.
The 10-week webinar series presents helpful and practical tools to use when patients are experiencing physical, emotional, and spiritual suffering as they cope with complicated grief. Special attention is directed to ways for health care providers to support themselves and coworkers during this pandemic.
The presentation decks and recordings, available to date, have been provided to share with all teams.
These sessions are facilitated by Eugene Dufour, a marital and family therapist, bereavement specialist, compassion fatigue educator, and a critical incident stress debriefing consultant. He has been working in bereavement, trauma work, hospice palliative care, and the HIV/AIDS movement for the past 30 years. Eugene presently works as a psychosocial spiritual care clinician with the Huron Perth Palliative Care Outreach Team.
Session One: COVID-19 and Complicated and Traumatic Grief
• Review of the Fight – Flight – Freeze – Fade mechanism
• Review of complicated and traumatic grief
• Developing a trauma informed practice, team, and environment
• Review of difficult grief, complex grief, prolonged grief, distorted grief, delayed grief
• Assessing complicated and traumatic grief
• Persistent complex bereavement disorder DSM-5
PPT below. Recording is not available.
Session Two: Struggling with Meaning and Purpose During A Pandemic
• Supporting people as they question meaning in purpose during the pandemic
• Supporting our coworkers as they struggle with the theme of meaning and purpose
• Supporting ourselves as we question our own view of meaning and purpose
• Fear of infection
• Dying from COVID-19
• The additional toll of dying during a pandemic
PPT below. The recording can be listened to here.
Session Three: Working with Suffering
• Defining suffering
• Understanding suffering
• Complicated and traumatic grief affects the individual, their identity, and their world view
• Walking with suffering
• Power of presence
• Deep listening skills
PPT below. The recording can be listened to here.
Session Four: Spirituality and Complicated and Traumatic Grief
• Spiritual assessment tools
• Spirituality and crisis care
• Working with the theme of hope
• The tree components of spirituality: Connection – Compassion – Contribution or Service
• Using the Window of Tolerance
PPT below. The recording can be listened to here.
Session Five: When Families Can Not Be Present at The Time of Death
• Assisting your client in organizing a virtual death viewing session
• How can this work?
• Supporting family members who are watching their loved ones die remotely
PPT below. The recording can be listened to here.
Session Six: When Our Coworkers Are Hurting – Compassion Fatigue and Secondary Trauma
• Assessing compassion fatigue, burn out, and compassion satisfaction
• Complicated and traumatic grief and the health care provider
• Working with an emotional hurt – coping with triggers
• What our minds suppress, our bodies express
PPT below. The recording can be listened to here.
Session Seven: When Our Clients are Suffering
• Assessments including trouble with sleep, eating, depression, and self-harm
• Educating about complicated and traumatic grief
• Working with feelings and the process of “focusing”
PPT below. The recording can be listened to here.
Information on sessions 8-10 will be posted when available.