Rogers Behavioral Health, 2020 Community Benefit

Helping Communities and Health Care Workers Fight Compassion Fatigue During Pandemic

As COVID-19 heightens stress on caregivers and parents, it is critical they take time for self-care and self-compassion in order to continue caring for others. 
Through Rogers InHealth, Rogers Behavioral Health released three free compassion resilience toolkits geared toward parents and those in helping professions. The need to build resilience and fight compassion fatigue was identified as an opportunity in Rogers’ community needs assessment, and the toolkit developed in response is proving invaluable during the pandemic. 
The resources give parents and professionals the tools to care for themselves while acting with compassion toward family members, students, patients, and anyone else who counts on them for support. Participants practice skills to engage in compassionate action as well as identify, prevent, and minimize compassion fatigue. It was created in partnership with DPI, Milwaukee Public Schools, other school systems, community mental health providers, youth serving agency leaders and parents. 
The compassion resilience toolkit guides health care, education and other professionals back to the values and sense of purpose that initially drew them to their field. It also builds skills to manage expectations, set boundaries, institute cultural change, build relationships, and practice self-care – all of which contribute to high-quality, compassionate care. 
Rogers has trained more than 600 individuals to facilitate their own compassion resilience groups with one of the three available toolkits. Additionally, Rogers released the “Compassion in Action COVID-19” video series and blogs that link compassion resilience to the realities faced during the pandemic, which have earned 20,000+ views and almost 20,000 page views.