The pandemic has caused an increase in workloads and longer waitlists for mental health professionals leading many professionals to work beyond their capacity. Self-care has never been more important.
| Series | Ethics and Boundaries |
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Understand the importance of self-care
This Ethics session focuses on the importance of self-care and the prevention of compassion fatigue and burnout as a basis of ethical practice. Since taking care of ourselves as clinicians is mandated by ethics codes, it is essential for mental health professionals to consider their self-care practices on an ongoing basis, not only as new professionals but also along one's professional journey. We must take care of ourselves in order to provide competent services to clients. Ethical standards and ethical decision-making will be discussed, including consideration of ethical dilemmas related to compassion fatigue, burnout, and self-care. We will outline symptoms to watch for in relation to compassion fatigue and burnout. We will discuss and self-assess self-care practices, as well as consider the impact of the pandemic on self-care, then develop individualized self-care plans.
Learning Objectives:
- Examine the importance of self-care practices and clinician wellbeing including the impact of COVID-19.
- Recognize the signs, symptoms, and impact that compassion fatigue/burnout may have on clinician’s personal and professional functioning.
- Explore self-assessments clinicians can use to identify compassion fatigue, burnout, and self-care strategies
- Develop a self-care plan in response to self-assessments and best practices.
- Explore the ethical standards and ethical decision making models used by mental health professionals in relation to compassion fatigue, burnout, and self-care.
- Apply appropriate ethical standards and decision making models to ethical dilemmas associated with compassion fatigue, burnout, and self-care in clinical practice.
This program satisfies the Wisconsin Social Worker’s Ethics and Boundaries requirements for licensing.
Who should attend
Social workers, counselors, psychologists, marriage and family therapists, substance abuse counselors, school psychologists, and other human service professionals
Instructors
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Dr. Amy Evans, PhD, has her doctorate in Counseling Psychology from the University of Wisconsin‐Madison. As an Associate
Professor for the Hazelden Betty Ford Graduate School of Addiction Studies, she trains future counselors in evidence‐based
practices for working with addictions and co‐occurring mental health issues. She is licensed in Wisconsin as a Professional
Counselor and Minnesota as a Professional Clinical Counselor.