Post-Pandemic Trauma-Informed Self-Care for Health Center Staff

The COVID-19 Pandemic has been a traumatic event for people around the world and in communities around the United States. Among health center staff, furloughs, task shifting and remote work, and increased exposure risk are just some of the challenges presented over the last year. In their work to bridge services and provide access to necessary care, health center staff have navigated the trauma of vulnerable patients, sometimes taking it on themselves.

The tendency for burnout and compassion fatigue is already high for healthcare workers, and the pandemic has only increased demands on staff. A trauma-informed self-care framework provides health center leadership with the capacity to recognize and address signs of burnout, compassion fatigue, and vicarious trauma, but also to help prevent some of the consequences to health center operations.

In this 90-minute session, participants will be introduced to a trauma-informed, healing-centered approach to organizational self-care. The presenters will address the ways in which trauma of the pandemic may affect health center staff and patients. Participants will learn how they can use a trauma-informed framework to establish and improve their organizational self-care policies and practices to support health center staff as they adjust to the post-pandemic context.