This is a private page of micro resources for people taking part in the pilot of The Compassion Project. Please don’t share with anyone else yet!
The Compassion Project aims to reduce and prevent empathy-based stress in healthcare staff.
This pilot study is funded by the National Institute for Health Research and has been specifically designed for staff working in child and adolescent mental health wards. These resource share ideas which evidence has shown to be helpful in reducing burnout, compassion fatigue and secondary trauma.
Session 1
In this session we consider what empathy-based stress is and how it relates to compassionate care. We use our stress signature to try to spot our warning signs of stress. The patient audio describes how important CAMHS ward care was to her, even years later.
Videos are all less than a minute long and the audio is less than 2 minutes.
What is Compassion?
What is empathy-based stress?
What is moral injury?
What is our stress signature?
The accompanying stress signature worksheet is here
Young person’s experience
Below is a short recording (less than 2 mins) of a young person who spent time in a CAMHS ward and her experience of compassionate care. What do you think about what she says about staff ‘holding hope’ for the young people, and the impact of this on her?
Session 2
In this session we think about a range of evidence-based coping strategies to reduce and prevent empathy-based stress. We focus on mapping out our own stress buckets. You can watch a video on this below.
One extra question to consider: how can you build in micro-practices through your day that can help you to feel even slightly more replenished?
What is a stress bucket?
Young person’s experience
This is another short recording (2 mins) of Beatrice, the young person we met in session 1 who has experienced CAMHS ward care. Beatrice is talking about a time she felt ward care was less than compassionate. Have a listen and if you’d like to consider these questions:
How do we manage to balance rules and compassion for individuals on the ward?
How do we say that we can’t do something if we need to (e.g if we have other competing demands) in a compassionate but clear way? Do you find this possible with young people? And can you also say you can’t do something to other members of your team?
Session 3
In this session we think about choosing what we focus our attention on and a technique called Low Impact Debriefing.
Circle of concern/circle of influence (what we pay attention to)
Low Impact Debriefing
Staff experience
Poppy used to work on a CAMHS ward. She talks here about how to manage discussing trauma in this context.
What do you think about what she says? And about the idea of using Low Impact Debriefing in your team?
Session 4
In this session we think about mindfulness and self-compassion.
What is mindfulness?
What is self-compassion?
Mindfulness meditation - 5 minutes
Session 5
In this session we recap the ideas about how individuals can reduce empathy-based stress and we think about compassion satisfaction.
Recap
Compassion Satisfaction Worksheet
Session 6
In this session we think about our context. We are all part of the systems around us.
Job Demands Resources Theory
Health and Safety Executive
Staff need to feel cared for too
Audio recording: how personal context impacts on what resources we might need
Session 7
In this session we think about what social support is available to us in our ward work.
Social support
Positive working relationships
Session 8
In this session we think about sources of professional support available to us
Professional support
Session 9
In this session we think about workload and how it can affect staff empathy-based stress and compassionate care.
Heavy workload, lack of time
Learned helplessness at work
What can be done when workloads are too high?
Session 10
In this session we continue to think about workload, specifically how it interacts with role clarity, team communication, and working with bank and agency staff.
What is role clarity?
Thinking about team communication…
Session 11
In this session we think about overworking: the idea that we can work beyond our capacity, and that this is bad both for us and for patient care.
What is overworking?
Your working habits worksheet
Session 12
In this session we think about values - both our individual values and our work team values
Why are values useful?
You can download a worksheet about values here if you want to think about your own