Dr. Jen Clifden
Educator | Researcher | Burnout Preventionist
The Light You Cast™
for Public Health
Protecting Our
Public Health Caregivers
We know that our public health caregivers are passionate, caring, and empathic people. They are the backbone of community health, and their capacity to care for others is their superpower.
We also know that public health caregivers' capacity to provide optimal care is radically diminished when burnout, secondary traumatic stress, and compassion fatigue set in. According to the Public Health Workforce Interests and Needs Survey (PH WINS) "two years of COVID response have contributed to increased stress and burnout, as well post-traumatic stress symptoms."
The Light You Cast™ for Public Health Caregivers is designed to:
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Increase public health caregiver awareness of early (and not so early) warning signs of burnout, compassion fatigue, secondary traumatic stress, and moral injury
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Increase public health caregiver mental, emotional, and soul heath wellness practices and perspectives
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Engage public health caregivers in body-based practices to embody mental health and resilience
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Strengthen public health caregiver network and create communities of support and practice that stave off the harmful cycles of energy depletion that manifest as burnout
What We Know About
Public Health Caregiver Burnout
The "cost of caring" in public health is experienced as compassion fatigue, secondary trauma, sacrifice syndrome, and burnout, and it costs the industry around $4.4 billion dollars a year.
According to the results of a National Survey of the Public Health Workforce, 56% of public health caregivers have reported at least 1 symptom of PTSD since the COVID-19 outbreak. Burnout and stress are cited as 2 of the top 5 reasons for leaving the public health profession.
Unchecked and accumulated stress in one’s professional life can reach a destructive tipping point where what innocuously begins as an “occupational identity crisis” generalizes to the entire self-concept of the human service professional (Vandenberghe & Huberman, 1999).
Burnout is a slow dis-integration of the public health caregiver that goes unnoticed over time and it reveals itself as emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and low self-efficacy.
Human beings are whole systems, inseparable from their environments, and have an innate capacity for health and well-being.
[Kreitzer and Koithan]
Core Restoration Practices
The Light You Cast™for Public Health Caregivers engages public health caregivers in exploring and experiencing adaptive perspectives, practices, and processes to manage, magnify, maintain, and protect their energy while they create energizing spaces of care for others.
REST
Healing Pillar
Regulate Nervous System | Restore Rhythm of the Body
Engage trauma-informed, mindfulness-based body-centered practices that harmonize, soothe, and regulate the mindbodysoul system.
RESTORATION
Healing Pillar
Making Meaning | Integration
Consciously metabolize
mental and emotional stress through our signature cognitive - behavioral Burn Clean Process to build resilience, self-confidence, mental agility, emotional literacy, and behavioral patterns that align with core worth and values.
REVITALIZATION
Healing Pillar
Connection with Others
Cultivate social intelligence and relationship skills to see, sense and respond to another's behavioral cues without taking it personally while creating resonate relationship patterns where others feel seen and safe.
Core Burn Clean Cycle
The Light You Cast™ for Public Health Caregivers illuminates a cyclical process that builds stable and sustainable energy over time where the public health caregiver heals and becomes more of one's self through the process of helping others.
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Curriculum
The Light You Cast™ curriculum teaches the
science of relationships and is based on:
Healing-Centered Design
Mindfulness
Somatic Practices
Social and Emotional Learning Theory
Interpersonal Neurobiology
Trauma-Responsive Care
Attachment Theory
On-Demand | Self-Paced Option
The entire (8) module signature curriculum fully online and self-paced can be licensed for just you or your entire organization or staff for ongoing, sustained mental health, emotional resilience, and burnout prevention support.
The Light You Cast™ ONLINE Curriculum can also be offered to compliment and deepen any in-person professional development experiences.
In-Person Offerings
Foundations Training
As a public health caregiver, you have been called to a relationship-based profession. That means that the relationships you have with those in your care are not only core to your sense of purpose, satisfaction, and effectiveness in your calling, they dramatically influence and impact your overall sense of self and personal well-being.
Given that all relationships are a sharing of energy and information, the primary question we will explore in our foundations work is:
How do you strategically maintain a sense of balance and inner harmony between the opposing forces of giving of yourself as a care-giver while not losing yourself in the process?
In our foundations training, together, we will:
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Explore and experience the 3 R's - REST, RESTORATION, REVITALIZATION cycle of public health caregiver wellbeing
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Engage and experience trauma-responsive mind-body healing practices that calm a busy mind, soothe the nervous system, relieve anxiety and overwhelm, and revitalize energy throughout your entire system
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Reconnect with one's core power source as a public health caregiver: core values, core strengths, core calling, core knowledge, and core purpose
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Gain awareness of the 8 primary stressors for public health caregivers that drive burnout, compassion fatigue, and secondary traumatic stress
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Raise awareness of the (3) stages and mind, body, and soul manifestations of burnout
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Learn and engage our signature Burn Clean CycleTM process for metabolizing the stress that feeds burnout into fuel that builds your resilience reservoirs so you bring more (not less) of your soul into your role
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Learn the 3 fundamental aspects of balancing caregiving energy with restoring one's inner energetic wellsprings
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Explore easy to apply boundary setting techniques that protect the caregiver's most important assets- energy, attention, and presence
Banishing Burnout
Through Balance and Boundaries
(1 day) 6 hour, in-person, training OR
(2 day) 3 hour, in-person, training
Connect with Jen for a customized investment quote for the size of your group
4 Core Topics Trainings
The Light You Cast™for Public Health Caregivers
curriculum is designed to be offered as a series of in-person training sessions where we gather as a cohort or group to engage in group learning, peer processing, and collective healing.
This in-persona training can either compliment the online, self-paced modules, or it can stand on its own as the in-person professional development experience.
#1
#2
Managing Your Energy, Not Time
The art of energy management
Detoxing Toxic Stress
How stress harms and heals
Busyness and time stress has become a predominate mode of being in many of our systems of care. When public health caregivers feel time-starved, it impacts their entire mind-body-spirit system. In this session, we explore how to create the "slow in the fast" where the public health caregiver learns strategies and mindsets to care from a place of presence and patience even in the midst of time stress. This session sets the foundational concepts of Burnout Awareness, Mental Health, and Energy Restoration
"Healing is a practice. It's not a one-time thing or idea. If I get up and do a bunch of exercises and repeat them, over time my muscles with get stronger. Healing is a practice just like this." (M. Schroedl) Our public health caregivers know better than most that healing is practice, and it requires attention, dedication, and commitment. Yet compassion fatigue and burnout inhibit a health caregiver's ability to turn their healing attention on themselves. In this session, we focus our attention on specific practices that health caregivers can leverage THROUGH stressful moments to transfigure toxic stress into moments of self-care and self-healing. Not all stress is equal. Some stress is good and some is not. In this session we explore the Stress Spectrum while caregivers learn about how their inner systems interacts with and metabolizes different stressors. Stress awareness and self-systems awareness go hand-in-hand. Explore the toxic stress impact and it's connection to trauma: -What is toxic stress vs. healthy/productive stress? How does toxic stress create trauma in the body? -What is productive/healthy stress? -What are the different stages of a trigger? Discover one's personal triggers that drive toxic reactions and learn an evidence-baed H.E.A.L practice for transforming a trigger into healing, insight, and mental health Engage and experience RESTORATIVE mind-body practices that settle and safeguard the body and befriend the nervous system
#3
The Healing Powers of Compassion
How compassion for the self cultivates compassion and empathy for those in your care
#4
Health
Equity
Creating spaces of health and healing for all
with Dr. Nuhu Sims (Equity Expert)
“It’s critical to realize that this epidemic of compassion fatigue is a shared responsibility. Individuals are not going to ‘resilience their way’ out of this. The medical system and culture of medicine have to change.” Oana Tomescu, MD We believe that the calling to be a public health caregiver is about care and healing for the communities they serve, AND we believe that public health caregivers were called to this healing work not only to heal others but to heal themselves. We believe that public health caregivers can learn strategies, perspectives, habits, and ways of being in relationship to stress and PTSD that stoke self-witnessing, self-compassion, and unconditional positive regard. Compassion for the self begets compassion for those in one's care. Compassion heals burnout, secondary trauma, and compassion fatigue. This session sets the foundational concepts of Relationship Revitalization and Compassionate Caregiving: - Learn and practice the 3 core elements of self-compassion while exploring how self-compassion has protective properties that stave off secondary trauma and compassion fatigue - Explore the difference between compassion fatigue, burnout, and secondary trauma - Experience the C.A.R.E healing module for revitalizing relationships based on deep listening and empathy - Discover one's personal triggers that drive compassion fatigue - Learn an evidence-based C.A.R.E practice for strengthening healthy relationships and social connections in the workplace where all feel safe, significant, and valued - Engage and experience REVITALIZING mind-body practices that activate the "soul nerve" and drive connection with those in our care
SHIP recognizes that our lived experiences with other people and our natural environment have a profound impact on the physical, mental, and social dimensions of our health. The intersection of these dimensions determines our state of well-being. To optimize well-being, people require conditions that allow them to feel that they belong, and that they are safe, significant, and valued." This session sets the foundational concepts of Health Equity and how they are cultivated, practiced, and embodied: - Explore the core concepts of health equity: examining assumptions, perspective taking, unconditional positive regard (asset-based approach), agency, and sharing power - Explore how core concepts of health equity are practiced and embodied through the C.A.R.E Model - Experience and practice how the C.A.R.E Model promotes the cultivation of the core concepts of health equity within the self so to embody asset-based community engagement
4 trainings, 4 hours each
Connect with Jen for a customized investment quote for the size of your group
Training Design & Delivery
The Light You Cast™ for Public Health Caregivers is a professional development experience that can be customized to fit your unique professional learning needs.
All training sessions and formats include:
Direct instruction on current, evidence-based knowledge and research about burnout, compassion fatigue, stress resilience, and adaptive caregiving.
A trauma-informed, somatic practice that strengthens the parasympathetic nervous system's relaxation response, soothes a busy mind, and reconnects your caregivers with their body.
Beautifully illustrated Put Into Practice take-away PDFs that outline detailed application practices to integrate into one's professional and personal life as a caregiver.
Invitations for personal and peer reflection and connection to deepen integration of practices and perspectives.
Outcomes
Through the The Light You Cast™ for Public Health Caregivers,
we will enact the cycle of healing and mindbodysoul restoration:
RECOGNITION
Create spaces of care and support for our human-service professionals where they receive validation and recognition of being called to a relationship-based profession that is intimately connected to the core of who they are. We acknowledge and support their need for sustained and systematic professional development in monitoring, assessing, and supporting their physical, emotional, mental, and self health while in service to others.
EDUCATION | AWARENESS
Learn the 3 R's of caregiver mindbodysoul healing and the energetics of health -
REST, RESTORATION, REVITALIZATION; raise awareness of the primary sources of toxic stress in relationship-based professions and of the stages and manifestations burnout, compassion fatigue, and moral injury.
AWAKENING
Discover and engage trauma-responsive principles, somatic body-based movement practices, and cognitive-behavioral based perspective expansion to REGULATE and soothe the nervous system so to RELATE to stress in a healthy way in order to cultivate REASON and wisdom from pain, uncertainty, stress, and anxiety.
EMBODIMENT
Experience slow and gentle body-based movement designed to melt tension while providing moderate amounts of healthy stress to boost mental and emotional energy, improve balance and body-awareness, and help to reduce inflammation that leads to disease; cultivate the mind-body connection to enhance introception (being able to ready your body's cues), intuition, and feeling like yourself (even in the midst of stress).
RESTORATION
Learn how to create boundaries that protect and create space for you to strategically restore and revitalize your emotional balance, mental energy, physical energy, and sense of self when you notice your inner energy reserves begin to naturally wane.
SUSTAINED SUPPORT
Engage in strategic support and peer networking so to continually manage and mitigate the onset of burnout, secondary trauma, and moral injury while magnifying collective healing and individual restoration and rejuvenation.
Included Materials
* Customized website for your group that includes supplemental online resources that extend the learning from the foundations training and each of the core learning sessions. Available for 3 months following the last session of the in-person training *
* Detailed "Put Into Practice" PDFs are provided for the foundations training and each of the 4 core topics trainings. These are distributed and used at the in-person sessions *
* Customized newsletter follow-up for each session emailed to the group after the in-person session to support the integration phase of learning between sessions *
Certificate of Completion
Earn a Certificate of Completion for total number of "clock hours" professional learning
