Compassion Fatigue and Vicarious Trauma When Serving System-Involved Youth

Sonja Lenz-Rashid, PhD, LCSW

Training Description

The training workshop will take a developmental approach, focusing on the various emotional and physical boundaries that inevitably arise with working with system involved youth and/or children in foster care. This training will also utilize case vignettes and small group sharing to dig deep into the various counter-transference experiences we may face when working with system involved and/or youth in foster care and how this counter-transference may impact our information gathering and strategies to support system involved youth.

Learning Objectives

1. Participants will be able to identify situations where they may begin to experience Vicarious Trauma and Compassion Fatigue (skill building)

2. Participants will apply and practice strategies (via role plays) of mindfulness in order to build Compassion Satisfaction (skill building)

3. Participants will learn about how trauma, and being involved in the child welfare system, may impact a foster youth's experiences with professional boundaries (knowledge building)

Agenda 

2:00-2:15pm  Introductions and Training Objectives

2:15-3:00pm  Section I: Overview of Compassion Fatigue (CF) and Vicarious Trauma (VT)

3:00-3:45pm  Section II: Building Insight and Awareness about recognizing CF and VT in our work

3:45-4:15pm  Section III: Case Vignettes and Discussion

4:15-4:50pm  Section IV: Self Care Techniques

4:50-5:00pm  Closure and Evaluations

Meet Our Trainer

Dr. Sonja Lenz-Rashid, LCSW, is a Professor of Social Work at San Francisco State University and a Co-founder and Faculty Research Evaluator of the SF State Guardian Scholars Program (GSP). Launched in 2005, the GSP serves over 90 current and former foster care youth on campus and has an annual budget of over $1 million (and is a non-profit on campus). Dr. Lenz-Rashid has studied the outcomes of, and best practice models for, former foster care youth at the national, state and Bay Area levels. Her research and publications have provided valuable feedback to child welfare administrators, legislators, and program developers in how best to serve these disenfranchised young people using evidence-based practice. She is also a consultant, trainer and clinical supervisor at a number of Bay Area non-profits serving children and youth being served by the foster care, juvenile justice, and behavioral health systems. She has over twenty-five years serving vulnerable youth in the San Francisco Bay Area.

This course meets the qualifications for (3) BBS CEUs for LCSWs, LMFTs, LPCCs, and LEPs as required by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences & is provided by Fred Finch Youth Center, CAMFT Provider #045295.