- 1. Compassion in Action
- 2. What Are We Talking About?
- 3. Compassion Fatigue: Connection to Trauma, Stages and Assessments
- 4. System Drivers of Compassion Fatigue
- 5. Expectations from Self and Others
- 6. Compassionate Boundary Setting to Build Compassion Resilience
- 7. Staff Culture
- 8. Wellness and Resilience Strategies: Mind
- 9. Wellness and Resilience Strategies: Spirit
- 10. Wellness and Resilience Strategies: Strength
- 11. Wellness and Resilience Strategies: Heart
- 12. Building Compassion-Based Relationships with Caregivers
- A. An Introduction for Leaders
- B. Making and Supporting Change
- C. Foundational Beliefs About Behavior
- D. Compassionate Response to Colleague’s Pain
- E. Stress Throughout the Career Cycle
- F. Facilitator Guide
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1. Compassion in Action
In this toolkit, we will explore ways to maintain a compassionate presence in our interactions with students, families, and colleagues. The rationale for this work as described in the introduction, points to many positive outcomes for us and others. It turns out that coming from a mindset of compassion greatly contributes to our job and life satisfaction.
Simply put, Compassion is concern for the wellbeing of others. It includes both the awareness of others’ distress coupled with a desire to alleviate it. At the same time that we desire to alleviate another’s distress, we also are confronted with the reality that we cannot “fix” another person’s pain. Throughout this toolkit we will explore our professional role in alleviating student, colleague and other’s distress while maintaining our well-being, in other words, we will focus on growing our compassion resilience.
Key Activity
Compassionate Action Steps – Scenarios for Discussion
Video: Excerpts from Section 1 Activities
Wellness Practice
An Invitation to Accept and Let Go of Resistance
Circle Agenda
Introduction to Staff Circles Agenda
This is a great place to start if your team is not use to receiving training in a circle format. Even if your team is use to circles, there are components of this agenda that would be helpful to include in your first Compassion Resilience circle, such as setting group agreements.Staff Circle Agenda, Section One
This document arranges the core content in section one into a 45-60 minute agenda. It is one of many ways to facilitate the content in this section. Please make revisions to fit the needs and time restrictions of your group.Core Content Visual to Display in Common Staff Areas
Compassionate Action Steps – Use this Visual and Display in Staff Break Areas
Posting this visual in common staff areas will serve as a reminder of content covered to staff and perhaps serve as a future conversation started for deeper reflection among staff members.Supplementary Activities/Handouts
Tips for Moving from Empathy to Engaging the Person in Discerning Best Action
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Within this section of the toolkit
Links Specifically for Leadership
Conversations about Compassion – The Compassionate Instinct
Topic two on pages 13-15 of this guide focuses on compassion as a human instinct. Facilitate a conversation using the questions on page 14 related to the compassionate instinct in the school setting.10 Principles of Organizational Culture
Use this article with your leadership team to discuss organizational change and how these principles apply to your school.10 Principles for Organization Culture Visual
Additional Resources
Collective Compassionate Actions: A Response to Child Traumas of COVID-19 – YouTube
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2. What Are We Talking About?
In the first section we underscored that compassionate action requires intent and skill. This section of the toolkit provides further definitions that are foundational to all else found throughout the toolkit. We will be introduced to the wellness model we will use in the toolkit and the concept of compassion fatigue. Activities will help us explore our beliefs about self-care and self-compassion.
Key Activity
Fatigue and Resilience in the Wellness Compass – Reflection
Wellness Practice
STRENGTH and MIND: Want More Energy? Consider Gratitude!
Practicing being grateful, among many other benefits, increases your energy. It turns out that our minds are wired to focus on the negative as a survival strategy. The three good things practice helps rewire your brain to notice the good in your life. You can start now by thinking of three things for which you are grateful and what role you had in them. Research shows writing them down has a longer positive effect on your wellbeing.
Then choose a time of day, every day, to set your mind on gratitude. Give it time, enjoy exploring gratefulness. Hopefully you too will find added positive energy for the important work you do.If you want to take this concept further, see what the Greater Good Science Center suggests.
Circle Agenda
Staff Circle Agenda, Section Two
Core Content Visual
Self-Compassion – Use this Visual and Display in Staff Break Areas
Posting this visual in common staff areas will serve as a reminder of content covered to staff and perhaps serve as a future conversation started for deeper reflection among staff members.Supplementary Activities/Handouts
What Were Your Childhood Messages About Self-Care?
This is an activity you could facilitate with your teams in addition to or in place of the circle agenda to explore personal messages about self-care.Self-Compassion Scale
This activity supports content covered in the Core Content Visual and document to distribute listed in the Information Section of the toolkit. The Self-Compassion Scale is also referenced in Section 11.For Easy Printing
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Conversations about Compassion
This conversation guide outlines five different conversations related to compassion and gives the resources needed to facilitate these in small groups. In section one you were asked to facilitate a discussion with the leadership team about the instinct humans have to be compassionate. For this section, facilitate a conversation with the leadership team and/or other small group or team within your school on the third topic, self-compassion. As a substitute, you can use the Kristin Neff article for the basis of your group discussion.Additional Resources
Self-compassion article, Dr. Kristin Neff
This article give more information on self-compassion according to Dr. Kristin Neff.For the animal lovers among us, this blog provides a wonderful overview of compassion resilience in the context of those who work in animal rescue.
My Mental Health Ritual: Self-Compassion and Setting Boundaries – Talkspace
This article looks at the important relationship between boundaries and self-compassion.
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3. Compassion Fatigue: Connection to Trauma, Stages and Assessments
In this section of the toolkit we will delve more deeply into the concept of compassion fatigue; how it connects to our understanding of trauma, the stages that one might experience if compassion fatigue is not addressed, and how to assess our levels of secondary trauma, burnout and compassion satisfaction. As we grow in our understanding of the extent and impact of trauma on the students we teach, their families and our communities, our ability to maintain an open and compassionate approach can be challenged. Compassion fatigue can develop slowly overtime and go unrecognized. This section gives us insights that can guide us to take proactive measures to prevent its progression.
Key Activity
Stages of Compassion Fatigue – Cats Cycle
Video: Excerpts from Section 3 Activities
Wellness Practice
Circle Agenda
Staff Circle Agenda, Section Three
Core Content Visual
Stages of Compassion Fatigue – Cats Cycle – Use this Visual and Display in Staff Break Areas
Posting this visual in common staff areas will serve as a reminder of content covered to staff and perhaps serve as a future conversation started for deeper reflection among staff members.Supplementary Activities/Handouts
The ProQOL is a 30 question, self-administered, self-scored, free assessment. This is included in the document to distribute for this section. Facilitators should make time for participants to complete the assessment during their time together or ask them to complete ahead of time.
It can be used on a regular basis as a self-check-in, offered in conjunction with supervisory or mentoring consultations, or as a basis for small group discussion. Please note that it is available on the ProQOL site in many languages. We do not recommend ProQOL’s are collected after being completed by participants, but rather used as a reflection tool.
Facilitators should be prepared to offer resources to staff whose ProQOL outcomes point to significant levels of burnout or secondary traumatic stress. Each district has employee support protocols and resources. Be sure you know those and remind staff that they exists and how to access them.
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Organizational Assessment Tool
Research links organizational culture to staff experience of compassion fatigue (1). One strong predictor of compassion fatigue is lack of clarity about the vision and mission of the organization. Leadership’s ability to align staff toward an overarching goal is an important key to staff job and compassion satisfaction.
Creating a trauma-informed culture of support for staff enhances their ability to provide such a culture for the students and families they serve. The STSI-OA is an assessment of the organization’s culture related to preventing and minimizing secondary trauma. The score is calculated online for your organization. Discuss results with your leadership team and consider one action to improve your school’s support for staff related to secondary trauma. http://www.stsinformed.com
1. Condrey, Katherine M. The Relationship between Compassion Fatigue and Organizational Culture. Diss. George Fox University, 2015.
Additional Resources
DPI’s Trauma Sensitive Schools Modules
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4. System Drivers of Compassion Fatigue
As we have discovered in the previous sections of this toolkit, the goal of compassion resilience can be reached with the application of personal skills and perspectives combined with organizational policies and practices. In this section we will focus on the systemic factors that can negatively impact our compassion resilience and explore our response and potential role in making positive change.
We all work in imperfect systems. When we look outside of our own system to those that we rely on to provide for the health and well-being of our students and their families, we find more imperfection. The first step in lessening the negative impact of the systems in which we live and work is naming what it is about the systems that contributes to our compassion fatigue. The second step is to discover which items on that list we can change, which ones leadership can and will address, and which ones we would best be served by letting go.
Key Activity
What Can I Control? Activity Write-Up
Toolkit Facilitators and Leadership Team, Please Review Prior to Implementing What Can I Control? Activity
The following is a review of system factors that lead to compassion fatigue and those that are protective. Keep these factors in mind as you facilitate the combined staff and leadership activity, What Can I Control?, and if you are on the leadership team, use this information to prepare and respond to the activity.Video: Excerpts from Section 4 Activities
Wellness Practice
SPIRIT: Humor and Core Values
Reflect on what are you doing when you feel most alive – most like yourself?The majority of people when asked this question do not immediately go to a situation at work, but rather a place outside of work where they feel most alive. If that’s the case for you, when is a time at work when you feel most alive?
When you go home from your workday, do you have a tendency to share what happened in your day that left you feeling most alive or what was most draining? Our bodies experience the stress we relive in our conversation to some degree as if we were experiencing it again. Sharing the hard parts of our day may be needed to be understood and validated. We can become aware of when it moves from helpful to hurtful. We have a choice about how much time and on what we focus when talking about our work. One practice to play with is to include what made you feel most alive in your day as you talk with friends and family
Circle Agenda
Staff Circle Agenda, Section Four
Core Content Visual
System Drivers – Use this Visual and Display in Staff Break Areas
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5. Expectations from Self and Others
Many of us give the very best of who we are every day, yet all too often struggle to feel like our best is good enough. Understanding and at times challenging our own expectations and perception of others’ expectations is key to identifying and transforming unrealistic expectations that compromise our ability to approach others with compassion and extend that compassion to ourselves. In this section, we identify the expectations we have for ourselves and for others and question whether these expectations are helpful for us or holding us back.
Key Activity
Clarifying Expectations (20-45 minutes)
The purpose of this activity is to examine whether our individual expectations are aligned with collective understanding.Wellness Practice
Developing Positive Affirmations
Circle Agenda
Staff Circle Agenda, Section Five
Core Content Visual
Expectations Discussion Prompts – Use this Visual and Display in Staff Break Areas
Posting this visual in common staff areas will serve as a reminder of content covered to staff and perhaps serve as a future conversation started for deeper reflection among staff members.Supplementary Activities/Handouts
Setting Helpful Expectations (20-30 minutes)
Many times, our expectations do not align with our own wants, needs, and values, but rather, represent things that are socially expected of us or things we are conditioned to believe. This exercise helps us set intentional expectations that are rooted in our values.Supporting Appropriate Expectations when Sharing Student Data with Parents
Handout with Tips for Clarifying an Expectation Concern
Assists staff in clarifying the what, why and how of an expectation across different levels of positional power.For Easy Printing
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The recommended activities provide ways to make workplace expectations more transparent and encourage healthy expectations among staff.
- Provide staff with access to Caregivers’ Bills of Rights (1. Compassion Fatigue Awareness Project and 2. aPlaceforMom) which provides affirmations that help combat negative self-talk and expectations; bonus point for creating your own version with staff. Here are two examples from workplace and family perspectives:
- Read the following article entitled “How to communicate employee expectations effectively” and after doing so, answer the following questions:
— What efforts can you undertake to encourage regular and ongoing conversations with staff regarding expectations?
— How can you more clearly communicate expectations to staff?
— How can you affirm what you, others, or your team are doing well to meet expectations?
— How might you encourage mentoring relationships and collaborative relationships among staff at your school?
Additional Resources
To find out more about the negative consequences of “shoulding” on ourselves (and how to avoid doing so), check out this resource from the author of “The Positively Present Guide to Life.”
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6. Compassionate Boundary Setting to Build Compassion Resilience
“Without boundaries, you will act, sleep, work, groan, feel used and fulfill basic responsibilities rather than make choices to live and love fully, to work hard and nobly, to fulfill your purpose and to contribute passionately to your world.” (Black, J. and Enns, G, Better Boundaries: Owning and Treasuring Your Life. Oakland, CA. Raincoat Books)
Key Activity
Helpful Adult Behaviors (20-40 min)
This activity is a highly valuable activity to do with school teams or schoolwide at a staff meeting. It will also prepare you for the Staff Culture section of the Toolkit.Video: Excepts from Section 6 Activities
Wellness Practice
Preparing to Write Your Mission Statement
Circle Agenda
Staff Circle Agenda, Section Six
Core Content Visual to Display in Common Staff Areas
Tips for Setting Compassionate Boundaries – Use this Visual and Display in Staff Break Areas
Posting this visual in common staff areas will serve as a reminder of content covered to staff and perhaps serve as a future conversation started for deeper reflection among staff members.Supplementary Activities/Handouts
Compassionate Boundaries Reflection (15 min)
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Leadership Support for Boundary Setting – Guided Discussion (15-30 min)
The leadership team will address key questions after participating in the Helpful Adult Behaviors activity with the whole staff or a small group of staff members.Additional Resources
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7. Staff Culture
“The only thing we have is one another. The only competitive advantage we have is the culture and values of the company. Anyone can open up a coffee store. We have no technology, we have no patent. All we have is the relationship around the values of the company and what we bring to the customer every day. And we all have to own it.” — Howard Schultz, CEO, Starbucks
Key Activity
Create Positive Staff Culture Agreements (15-30 minutes in small group and 15-30 min in large group)
Example of Staff Culture Agreements
Video: Section 7 – Behavior Agreements
Wellness Practice
Strategy for Self-care – STRENGTH – Stress Resilience
In order to offer a non-anxious presence with our colleagues, students, and their families, we need to be able to recognize the times when we cannot! In other words, we need to be able to recognize when we need either a new perspective or a break. Often our bodies let us know. The first question we might ask ourselves is, what am I telling myself about this situation and what is another possible story? Here’s a fascinating TED Talk on making stress our friend (also referenced in Section 10).And, sometimes we really just need a break! It is helpful to have a plan for what we can do and who can assist us in finding a way to take a break. Of course, all of this is successful only if we allow ourselves the vulnerability of needing a break and, if appropriate, asking for help.
Circle Agenda
Staff Circle Agenda, Section Seven
Core Content Visual to Display in Common Staff Areas
What Do You Want to Say About the Culture of Staff? – Use this Visual and Display in Staff Break Areas
Posting this visual in common staff areas will serve as a reminder of content covered to staff and perhaps serve as a future conversation started for deeper reflection among staff members.Supplementary Activities/Handouts
Support Begins With Empathy! (10-15 min)
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How to Avoid the Contagion Effect of Sharing Tough Stories between Colleagues
Read the information about low impact debriefing strategies and decide how to share with staff.Additional Resources
Excellent blog with examples from schools working on improving staff culture.
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8. Wellness and Resilience Strategies: Mind
“Radical Reflection: You are not your thoughts! That said, avoiding your thoughts will not help you train your brain to think new ones. You must look at them with gentle kindness and say, “Thank you for sharing.“ And with love, release them.” – Sonya Renee Taylor
The four sectors of the compass model -Mind, Spirit, Strength and Heart- not only contribute to our overall wellness, but also provide guidance on strategies to help build our compassion resilience. Before delving in further, you may want to take a self-assessment of your current wellness practices (attached). Hold onto this and notice if any that you marked as “this never occurred to me” change as you encounter the next four sections of the toolkit.
Mind is the first sector we will explore. Being resilient in this area is exemplified by being well-organized, engaging in meaningful work, and being fully present in the moment. As we learned in Section 1, mindful self-awareness is a contemplative practice of being intentionally aware in the present moment. We have practiced strategies to enhance our mindfulness in various sections of the toolkit. Mindful self-awareness is a key skill for the Mind Section area as well as those that follow: Spirit, Strength, and Heart.
Key Activity
Appreciative Inquiry Reflection on Competence (15 mins-45 mins)
Wellness Practice
Wellness Compass Practices Assessment
Circle Agenda
Staff Circle Agenda, Section Eight
Core Content Visual to Display in Common Staff Areas
Mindsets – Use this Visual and Display in Staff Break Areas
Posting this visual in common staff areas will serve as a reminder of content covered to staff and perhaps serve as a future conversation started for deeper reflection among staff members.Supplementary Activities/Handouts
Power of the Positive Word (15 minutes-30 minutes)
Practicing Mindfulness – The Body Scan and Pause (3-10 minutes)
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Name and Celebrate Staff Competence
Showing appreciation to your staff and fellow co-workers is a part of a healthy, productive, and encouraging work culture. Here are some options to encourage appreciation and focus on the specific competencies of staff or staff teams that combine to produce your school’s positive outcomes.
- Create a process where staff can nominate each other for staff appreciation
- Create and maintain an ongoing list of assets of your team or workplace — Something everyone can add to and see in the teachers’ common gathering space
- Develop a gratitude board, or employ other strategies to foster a workplace attitude of gratitude, such as the ideas provided here
Additional Resources
Link to resources, videos, and tools to learn more about and develop a growth mindset.
Short video on using mindfulness in teaching practice.
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9. Wellness and Resilience Strategies: Spirit
Spirit is one of the four sectors of the compass model for self-care. Each area contributes to and helps build our compassion resilience. Spirit encompasses connecting to our sense of purpose with intentionality, exposing ourselves to resilience in those we serve, and recreating ourselves through rest and play.
Key Activity
Sharing Stories of Resilience (5-10 min)
Institute the regular practice of sharing stories about current and past students’ resilience.Wellness Practice
Developing Your Professional Mission Statement (15-30 min)
Circle Agenda
Staff Circle Agenda, Section Nine
Core Content Visual to Display in Common Staff Areas
Rest and Play Reflection – Use this Visual and Display in Staff Break Areas
Posting this visual in common staff areas will serve as a reminder of content covered to staff and perhaps serve as a future conversation started for deeper reflection among staff members.Supplementary Activities/Handouts
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School vision and mission statement development (30-60min)
Additional Resources
5 Elements of a Powerful Company Mission Statement
Know Your Why, Michael Jr.
Comedian Michael Jr. shares an example of the power of knowing your “why” in your work. -
10. Wellness and Resilience Strategies: Strength
In the compass model, the four sectors, Mind, Spirit, Strength and Heart, not only contribute to your overall wellness, but also provide guidance on strategies to help build your compassion resilience. Strength is one of the sectors. Strength encompasses stress resilience and care for the body. Stress resilience allows us to maintain a level of calm as we encounter the inevitable stressors of our job. Developing our ability to care for our bodies and listen to the signs that our bodies give us, support our whole health and minimize any unhealthy responses to stress. Becoming stress resilient and caring for our bodies often require assistance from others. Help seeking is a key skill for both of the areas in the strength section of the Wellness Compass.
Key Activity
Listening and Responding to Stress in Your Body (10-15 min)
Wellness Practice
Care for Body – Develop Your Plan (10-15 min)
Circle Agenda
Staff Circle Agenda, Section Ten
Core Content Visual
Choose Nourishing vs. Depleting! – Use this Visual and Display in Staff Break Areas
Posting this visual in common staff areas will serve as a reminder of content covered to staff and perhaps serve as a future conversation started for deeper reflection among staff members.Supplementary Activities/Handouts
Writing and Sharing Staff Resilience Stories (30-60 min)
One of our pilot schools for this toolkit experimented with an activity that went so well, they want to share it with other schools. Staff were asked to write a short story about an obstacle they faced and overcame. The stories were submitted anonymously and shared with students by random staff in various classes. The next day the homeroom teachers led a community building circle to talk about what the students had heard and what it meant to them.Why it is so hard for teachers to take care of themselves
Dr. Kelly McGonigal’s TED Talk on How to Make Stress Your Friend explores a perspective shift on stress when the healthy pressure of growth in your work place feels overwhelming.
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Additional Resources
This article discusses the stages of change applied to emotional resilience. The website offers many brief articles on topics included in this toolkit.
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11. Wellness and Resilience Strategies: Heart
In the compass model, the four sectors, Mind, Spirit, Strength and Heart, not only contribute to your overall wellness, but also provide guidance on strategies to help build your compassion resilience. Heart is one of the sectors. This section will take a deeper look at our emotions, and our relationships, both with ourselves and with others. We will be invited to focus on our self-compassion as we seek to be compassionate in our relationships with students, families and colleagues.
Key Activity
A Self-Compassion Exercise (10min)
Self-Compassion Self-Scoring Scale (Dr. Neff)
If Self-Compassion Scale was completed in Section 2, use DPI’s emotional regulation plans listed in the Supplementary Activities/Handouts section as your key activity asking staff to complete one for themselves.Wellness Practice
Circle Agenda
Staff Circle Agenda, Section Eleven
Core Content Visual
Colleague Conversations – Use this Visual and Display in Staff Break Areas
Posting this visual in common staff areas will serve as a reminder of content covered to staff and perhaps serve as a future conversation started for deeper reflection among staff members.Supplementary Activities/Handouts
Department of Public Instruction’s Emotional Regulation Plan
Use DPI’s emotional regulation plans asking staff to complete one for themselves.For Easy Printing
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Fostering Relationship Building among Staff
Additional Resources
This article explains the importance of communication: 7 things to avoid, 11 things to keep in mind.
This article offers a brief introduction and tips for developing better communication skills through structured dialog and communicating your trust distinctions.
For more excellent resources on self-compassion go to Dr. Kristin Neff’s website
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12. Building Compassion-Based Relationships with Caregivers
Throughout this section, caregiver is used to represent parents, legal guardians, grandparents, and whomever is the primary caregiver for a student.
The opportunities educators have for relationships with students’ caregivers can leave them vulnerable to compassion fatigue too. The drivers of compassion fatigue around caregivers can be very similar to those that drive compassion fatigue around students. When we come to understand the trauma families face, try to meet unrealistic expectations of those relationships, and/or feel ineffective in building positive relationships with caregivers, it can lead to behaviors that are signs of compassion fatigue. We do not have to look far to hear educators blaming caregivers, using the home life as an excuse for lowered expectation of students, and not wanting to get to know the family context of their students. Of course, the same is true in reverse. It is not uncommon to hear caregivers blaming educators for the challenges their children face and spending time building fences rather than bridges.
Key Activity
Compassionate Connection to Caregivers Activity – activity for a staff meeting
Wellness Practice
Bringing It All Together Through My Hands — An activity to summarize compassion and self-compassion found in the document to distribute in the information section of the toolkit
Circle Agenda
Staff Circle Agenda, Section Twelve
Supplementary Activities/Handouts
Communicating with Caregivers When There is a Challenge – Handout and possible role-play activity
What to do when I feel attacked by a parent? – Professionally Speaking Article
This is an example of setting compassionate boundaries with caregivers.Stages of Change Applied to Caregiver Conversations
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Additional Resources
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A. An Introduction for Leaders
Engagement in and modeling of concepts outlined in the compassion resilience toolkit by building and district leaders is essential to building and maintaining a compassionate workplace culture. Below are some resources to support leadership with the implementation of the toolkit.
An Introduction to the Compassion Resilience Toolkit
This resources outlines the rational for compassion resilience and the core concepts included in the toolkit.Leadership Toolkit Implementation Considerations
Guidance is provided for leaders on things to consider to best support with the implementation and integration of each section of the toolkit.There are sections of the toolkit that benefit from additional leadership guidance. Below are documents to direct that guidance.
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B. Making and Supporting Change
Whether we are growing our compassion resilience to prevent compassion fatigue or to address existing compassion fatigue, this intentional shift often includes changing attitudes and behaviors that no longer serve us well. The Stages of Change offers a model for people to understand the complex path towards successful change and how to support our own change efforts as well as the change efforts of colleagues and those we supervise. This model identifies effective action and responses at each stage to avoid the unintended negative consequences of mismatched efforts. James Prochaska, John Norcross and Carlo DiClemente are the researchers and architects of the Stages of Change model. It is also known as the Transtheoretical Model. The model assesses an individual’s readiness to act on a new healthier behavior, and provides strategies, or processes of change to guide the individual through the stages of change to Action and Maintenance.
As we engage in culture change, it can also be helpful to take inventory on where the culture currently stands. This section offers a resource, The Relational Culture Check Up as a self-reflection and conversation designed for leaders and staff to learn about the relational culture of their organization.
The Stages of Change Powerpoint provides an overview of the Stages of Change model. View the slides in the mode that allows you to read the notes for each slide.
Leadership Activity
What’s the Stage? What’s My Response? This brief activity lists statements to practice identifying the stage they represent. It will build leaders’ ability to identify what stage someone is at so they can choose effective supports for that person’s desired behavior change. Pages two and three provide a chart that takes the statements from the What Stage activity and suggests helpful responses to support that person in their current stage of change.
Relational Culture Checkup The Relational Culture Checkup—focused specifically on youth-adult relationships—is a five-minute online check-up for leaders and staff, designed to help you identify what your organization is doing well and uncover areas for improvement. This checkup will lead you through the two components of the relational culture, assess each of these, and report the results to help you reflect on the core mindsets, skills, practices, and supporting structures needed to cultivate and sustain a relationship-rich culture.
Staff Activity
Navigating Your Way Through the Stages of Change handout that describes each stage and gives self-help hints for those looking at their own change behaviors and hints for how to help others as they navigate change.
Individual Reflection Worksheet The individual names a target change and goal behavior, identifies the stage of their current change, and completes questions based on their stage of change.
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C. Foundational Beliefs About Behavior
One driver of compassion fatigue for anyone who seeks to offer support to others is their beliefs about behavior and what supports desired behaviors. If educators approach children, parents, or colleagues with the wrong belief about what problematic behavior means and requires, it is like beating their head against a wall and coming up empty-handed and exhausted. If your school has not spent time recently reviewing foundational beliefs about children’s behavior, consider presenting this slideshow and leading a brief discussion at your next staff meeting.
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D. Compassionate Response to Colleague’s Pain
We are often the first to see early signs of compassion fatigue and other emotional challenges our colleagues’ experience. The information linked below provides guidance on how to respond in ways that are helpful and linked to resources your colleague may need.
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E. Stress Throughout the Career Cycle
The first stage of compassion fatigue is the Zealot Stage which often describes early career educators. The beginning years of an education career provide the opportunity to learn specific compassion resilience strategies that can support well-being, effectiveness in the classroom, and longevity in the field.
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F. Facilitator Guide
Before facilitating School Compassion Resilience groups, please reference these tips for facilitating small groups and the engaging participants with questions resource.
