Workshop with guest speaker Frank Ostaseski - October 15, 2010
Cost of Workshop - $125 for professionals and $75 for students and volunteers
Compassion is integral to all healing. It is an innate capacity that enables us to sensitively open to suffering. Part of the beauty and function of compassion is that it establishes a trustworthy connection, supports mutual well-being, companions what we fear is intolerable and allows us to stay present in the territory of unanswerable questions. Without the presence of compassion caregiving becomes a series of mechanical or technological efforts that exhaust everyone and heal no one. Frank discuss how to sustain the fearless receptivity of compassion and draw on his experience as both patient and caregiver to illustrate its impact on those facing life threatening illness and loss.
Specifically, we will focus on the three essential qualities needed by those accompanying the dying. They include, compassionate presence in the face of suffering, freedom from the limitations of roles and an abiding trust in the dying process. When these are present we become a trustworthy refuge for our self and those we serve.
Weaving together moving stories, Buddhist practices, and good common sense developed over 20 years at the bedside, Frank helps us to see that accompanying the dying is much more than providing appropriate medical care. This workshop is open to all and may be of particular interest to professionals or those anticipate caring for family members or friends facing life-threatening illness.
Location: Chateau at Bothell Landing, 17543 102nd Ave NE, Bothell, WA 98011
Time: 10:00 - 4:00
Cost: $125 for professionals and $75 for students and volunteers
5 CEUs will be available for registered nurses, social workers and therapists
Download Flyer:
Compassionate_Presence_workshop_7-14.pdf These are some of the workshops and classes we've offered in the past - if you'd like us to conduct one of these for your organization, please contact us.
Facilitating Decision Making and Care Planning Meetings
When patients are admitted to a hospital without an advance directive, living will or with little understanding about how the healthcare system provides care how do healthcare professionals address their needs? Often patients and their families are facing their mortality for the first time and making decisions with little or no understanding. This is a crisis and healthcare providers know how to deal with a crisis. But illness is more than a medical crisis it is also a crisis of spirit. Taking the time to work together making effective decisions and developing a care plan that respects and values preferences, cultural and spiritual perspectives of each patient can become a standard of care. This workshop will explore advance care planning documents, compassionate communication surrounding discussion of these documents and how to effectively facilitate decision making and care planning meetings with patients, their families and the interdisciplinary healthcare team.
The Courage to Care workshop with Dr. Charles Garfield
THE COURAGE TO CARE: Spiritual and Psychological Care for the Living and Dying. In this workshop, Dr. Charles Garfield will discuss how all illness, healing, dying and grieving involves an encounter with pain and suffering AND the possibility of wisdom, compassion and transcendence. He will explore relationship-centered care, service as both a covenant with our patients and a spiritual path for caregivers, and the vital difference between the wounded healer and the wounding healer. We will also learn how – at the heart of a mature spirituality – lies an encounter with something greater than ourselves.To read a brief biography of Dr. Garfield click here.
Self-care Strategies for Healthcare Professionals
Are you presently working in end-of-life care? Do you find your work to be mutually beneficial i.e.; supportive of you and the people you serve? Have you ever wondered about the concept of compassion fatigue? Have you been taught that self care is taking a bath in a dimly lit room with candles glowing or learning to “just say no” to additional work demands?
This workshop will provide you with skills that are practical and easy to integrate into your work and personal life. Workshop attendees will learn the difference between compassion fatigue and burnout and what can be done to grow through these experiences. Evaluate your personal death awareness and how your awareness might affect your work in end-of-life care, explore ways to sustain an inner life and learn simple contemplative practices and self care approaches.
Developing the Contemplative Mind Series - Mindfulness Meditation in the Workplace
Recent research has shown that mindfulness and contemplative practice
are effective ways to address some health concerns, healthcare provider
stress and to connect with one’s inner experience when one is coping
with illness or providing service as a health care provider. We offer
this series to the general public, teaching the skills of mindfulness
across the lifespan and to healthcare professionals, graduate students,
volunteers, and allied professionals that serve people experiencing
life-limiting conditions
How Do We Communicate about Life-Limiting Illness and Dying?
Healthcare professionals are taught to cure and fix but often are not taught what to do and say when there is not a cure or there is nothing to fix. There are times when medical care is not action oriented- there may be nothing to do do but there is always a way “to be” and to bring listening into the relationship. This workshop will explore ways to be present with people as they move through their illness and into their dying. We will explore ways to be present to the people we serve and to begin to open to understanding what they are experiencing. We will explore ways to maintain our balance while listening and being present to each other.
