Morning Session

Dr. Patricia Fisher, R.Psych., L.Psych. Specialist in Trauma-Exposed Workplaces Co-Executive Director, TEND

Dr. Patricia Fisher is a clinical psychologist and specialist in organizational health and workplace wellness in trauma-exposed workplaces. As the founder of Fisher & Associates, over the past 20 years, she has developed a host of research-based training programs, assessment tools and solutions for trauma-exposed workplaces and the staff and managers who work in them.

Dr. Fisher has worked extensively with agencies and organizations from the social services, healthcare, justice, legal, corrections, policing, and emergency response sectors, as well as those, form other trauma-exposed environments. She has authored numerous reports and research papers and 9 books addressing trauma-exposed workplace issues.

Working in high stress, trauma-exposed settings can create an increased risk of negative health outcomes and burnout and can lead to a rise in sick time, low morale, increased team conflict and high turnover. These consequences can, in turn, seriously limit a team’s ability to work effectively and efficiently. This workshop will provide a framework to understand the mechanisms of stress and resilience within trauma-exposed environments and will introduce practical, best-practice approaches to increase resilience and enhance individual wellness and team health.

Afternoon Session

Diana Tikasz, MSW RSW

Diana has been committed to trauma-focused work in the healthcare sector for the past 20 years. She has coordinated hospital-based sexual assault/domestic violence treatment programs, which involved counselling those who have been traumatized by violence, teaching other professionals how to do this work effectively while staying healthy themselves. Her passion is to assist people in creating personal changes that promote health.

The pace, content and competing demands of the modern workplace has left many of us operating in constant stress and overdrive. Frequently this elevated stress state is challenged further with added pressures and trauma exposure. Eventually, we can find ourselves shutting down and numbing out because our bodies are not built to function in this high-energy state for extended periods of time. As a result, we see many negative physical, emotional, behavioural and relational consequences in the workplace.

WTF stands for “Window of Tolerance Framework”. This day training will provide skills to move helping professionals out of states of reactivity or avoidance and into the place of possibility where we are centered amongst the chaos and can choose how we wish to respond. It is ideally suited for front-line workers and others working with forensic evidence, investigations, court, with witnesses and victims and those working with individuals who have experienced difficult and traumatic experiences.