Supporting End-of-Life Professionals Coping with Burnout and Compassion Fatigue
Member Exclusive | Hospice Foundation of America Webinar
Hospice Foundation of America webinar
Event Details
SDAHO members receive free or discounted rates on HFA educational sessions. Register through SDAHO to receive a coupon code to use on HFA's site to access the special rates.
Overview:
Working with people confronting grief, loss, trauma, and tragedy is an intensely personal endeavor—one that carries well-documented risks for practitioners, including burnout, moral distress, and compassion fatigue. Yet current research and clinical wisdom show that the demands of this work can be managed effectively and may even promote personal and professional growth. Drawing on recent developments in positive psychology, neuroscience, and contemporary psychotherapy, this session presents evidence-based strategies to strengthen emotional resilience, sustain meaningful self-care, and enhance clinical effectiveness.
Objectives:
- Identify the core features and underlying causes of burnout, compassion fatigue, and moral distress—and assess your own experience across these dimensions.
- Differentiate between empathy, compassion, and personal distress—and explain how each influences clinicians’ responses to those in emotional pain.
- Understand how purpose, professional commitment, and meaning-making serve as protective factors that foster resilience in caregiving roles.
Target Audience: Hospice
Registration closes July 13 at Noon CT.
Kenneth J. Doka, PhD, MDiv
Kenneth Doka is Senior Vice President of Grief Programs at Hospice Foundation of America (HFA) and the recipient of the 2019 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association of Death Education and Counseling (ADEC). He is professor emeritus, the Graduate School of The College of New Rochelle. A prolific author and editor, Doka serves as editor of HFA’s Living with Grief® book series, its Journeys newsletter, and numerous other books and publications. He has been a panelist on HFA’s Living with Grief® program for 30 years. Doka is a past president of ADEC, a former board member of the International Work Group on Death, Dying and Bereavement, and an Advisory Board member to the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS). He is the recipient of The International Work Group on Death, Dying, and Bereavement’s prestigious Herman Feifel Award and ADEC’s Award for Outstanding Contributions in the Field of Death Education. In 2006, he was grandfathered in as a Mental Health Counselor under New York’s first state licensure of counselors. Doka is an ordained Lutheran minister.
Dale Larson, PhD
Dale G. Larson (B.A, University of Chicago; Ph.D, U.C. Berkeley) is J. Thomas and Kathleen L. McCarthy Professor, and Professor of Counseling Psychology, Santa Clara University. A clinician and researcher, he is a Fulbright Scholar, a Fellow in three Divisions of the American Psychological Association, and a Fellow in the International Work Group on Death, Dying and Bereavement. His publications on end-of-life issues, stress in professional caregivers, grief and grief counseling, and secrets and self-concealment are widely cited, and he is the author of the award-winning book, The Helper’s Journey: Empathy, Compassion, and the Challenge of Caring. He has received the Association for Death Education and Counseling Death Educator Award and was honored as an Innovator of Hospice and Palliative Care by the National Hospice Foundation.