Customized Resiliency Training for Men and Women Serving on the Frontlines of Trauma
Military service members, law enforcement personnel, and first responders encounter trauma on a daily basis. Combat, crime, and stress form the backdrop to their calling to serve our country and its citizens. Their experiences on the front lines can leave a residue of secondary, or vicarious trauma – a burden of stress that can take a professional and personal toll. Chronic pain and disease, compassion fatigue and burnout wait in the wings to take down even the strongest and most dedicated service members, veterans, peace officers, firefighters, and rescue workers.
Resilience reverses the downward cycle of vicarious trauma. The capacity for resilience – the ability to resolve and heal from trauma and emotional wounds – is a skill which can be learned. The Bernstein Institute for Trauma Recovery (BITR) offers a comprehensive and supportive resiliency training program in a safe and confidential environment to address the self-care needs of military, law enforcement and other first responders due to the impact of on-the-job stress and trauma.
BITR customizes our resiliency training packages for any work setting in which frontline workers encounter high levels of stress due to vicarious trauma alone or in combination with a highly demanding work environment. Our approach gives emphasis to four key concepts of resilience:
- Compassion Fatigue on the Front Lines
Understanding the distinctions between stress, compassion fatigue and burnout; using self-assessment tools, and developing robust self-care practices
- Energy Absorbed During Encounters
Developing awareness of residual stressful energy absorbed from highly-charged situations and events; methods to release trapped energy and “stand down”
- Emotional Triggering and Pushing the Pause Button
Understanding how personal issues and history can enter into and amplify stressful encounters; using the “pause button” to say on-task in your role
- Resolving Emotional Triggering
Recognizing the difference between reacting and responding under stress; full-spectrum techniques to remain effective on the job while maintaining personal health and well-being
Our approach is educational and interactive in nature and address possible negative outcomes such as compassion fatigue, vicarious traumatization, secondary traumatic stress reactions, empathic strains, and burnout. Through a combination of teaching and facilitated practice of resiliency skills and techniques, program participants will gain understanding and mastery of powerful tools to combat tension, stress, fatigue or exhaustion, and emotional imbalance that would diminish their ability to function effectively.
In addition to teaching proactive skills for self-care, BITR’s resiliency training program strengthens mutual peer support through team-building that will enhance group cohesion.
As a result, program participants proactively build self-care skills into their daily lives, develop go-to techniques to deal with the build-up of emotional stress, and establish supportive teams to strengthen all team members’ efforts. Program content combines the latest methods of self-care and resiliency with over fifty years of experience in the field of trauma recovery.
Dr. Peter Bernstein and the Bernstein Institute for Trauma Recovery offer you an extremely effective answer to professional staff stress due to trauma exposure and demanding work settings. Please contact us at 707.781.3335 for more information.