Compassion Fatigue Resiliency

Free resources to help your institution establish your own compassion fatigue resiliency program.

If you find them useful, we hope your institution will consider becoming a member of The 3RsC or donating personally to help support our continued dedication to promoting resiliency including the maintenance and revision of these materials.

Institutions play a critical role in supporting resiliency and wellness for their employees. Below are links to a series of downloadable documents that will guide you through creating and maintaining such a program for your institution. We have shared recordings of the webinars from our 2022 pilot assessment program that you can use for staff training in resiliency. Finally, we also have a printable poster and packet that you can use for your facility and staff. We want to recognize and thank the Northwest Center for Occupational Health & Safety Professional Training Opportunities Program for supporting the initial creation and evaluation of these materials.

1. The Core Components to Creating an Institutional Compassion Fatigue Resiliency Program

Start with this packet to learn a suggested timeline for starting an institutional compassion fatigue program, guidance on forming & maintaining a committee (membership, example agendas, example charters, etc.), sample budget, advice on leadership buy-in, a manager’s role in a wellness program and templates to create an animal tribute event/organization. You can download & edit the slide deck to garner leadership buy-in by clicking here.

2. A Manager’s Role In A Wellness Program

Distribute the above packet to managers so they can learn their special role in resiliency.

3. Compassion Fatigue Resiliency Poster

Print this poster and hang it in visible areas around your facility to demonstrate your commitment to compassion fatigue resiliency and link staff to our resource hub.

4. Webinar Series on Compassion Fatigue Resiliency

View the above webinars with your staff as part of introductory group activities. We recommend in-person group viewing to facilitate active listening and participation. These webinars were recorded in 2022 as part of our pilot. Topics include:

  • Introduction to Compassion Fatigue Resiliency with companion discussion guide
  • Mindfulness for Everyday Life
  • Creating Great Work Relationships
  • Care-full Stories: Culture of Care
  • Meaning Making in Laboratory Animal Science

5. Group Activity Ideas to Support Compassion Fatigue Resiliency

Are you looking for ideas of targeted activities to do with your staff to support resiliency beyond the webinar series? This packet includes many possibilities, some that take as little as 5 minutes and others that go deeper across several hours.

6. Passive Learning Resources

Email out and print the above packet so staff can learn about compassion fatigue resiliency and self-care independently, in written form. For a very popular, low-budget and simple activity we recommend crafting mice out of balloons and filling out cage cards for them. Download the mouse crafting guide & printable cage cards.

7. Culture of Care Packet

Looking to learn more about how to build a Culture of Care? This packet covers a general overview, how it relates to compassion fatigue, and how to recognize a good culture of care.

One resource to foster a Culture of Care is a set of workshops called Care-full stories created by Professor Beth Greenhough and colleagues. Learn more about the project and get access to the full set of stories on their website.

Professor Greenhough worked with our groups to create North-American focused stories for this particular project which you can access below:

8. Compassion Fatigue Resiliency Survey

Use the above sample survey from the 3Rs Collaborative to conduct your own internal survey of your staff. If you wish to make this shorter, we suggest cutting the MNRI_HandsOn scale and choosing only one of the following (PROQOL, PSS, or CDRISC).

If you find the above resources useful, we hope you consider asking your institution to become a member or donating personally. Institutional memberships and your contributions helps us keep resources like this free and supports our continued efforts to promote compassion fatigue resiliency.

Funding for this work was supported by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) under Federal Training Grant T42OH008433. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of NIOSH.