Four mental health experts recommend ways to manage compassion fatigue and burnout for behavioral health professionals.

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For our December installment of the Behavioral Health Toolbox Series, we covered a topic that is near-and-dear to many of us as we transition into 2021: compassion fatigue and burnout among healthcare professionals. The Telehealth Certification Institute Toolbox Series delivers live virtual webinars on telehealth topics facilitated by experts in the behavioral health field. Our webinars are practical, immersible, and driven by your interests.

Four panelists contributed to the December discussion. Sarah Dooling, a registered play therapist and instructor in San Diego State University’s MSW program, took an inventive approach to coping with pre-COVID triggers and current stressors. Sara advised practitioners to create a Resilience Kit with tools that will keep you well. Sara’s suggestion highlighted one of the webinar’s primary goals—optimizing creativity while creating new self-care routines. As Sara described for viewers, using transitional objects, such as a piece of paper with the names of your personal support squad, can act as a visual indicator.

Providing mental health using telehealth requires all clinicians to take extra steps to make sure their clients are safe during sessions, and that they are in a private location where no one can listen in.

But providing telehealth services gets even trickier when you are in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, and your clients are young sexual abuse survivors. Some may even be living with their abusers.

Patsy Fuller is a counselor in Louisiana with more than 10 years of experience. She’s worked with clients coping with severe mental illnesses, addiction, and childhood sexual trauma. She’s currently with Sexual Trauma Awareness and Response, or S.T.A.R, an agency that supports survivors of sexual trauma.

Fuller was working with addicted clients at a psychiatric hospital when she discovered that many of her clients also had a very different issue.

Patrick Hendry is a pioneer in the peer mentoring field who has spent three decades promoting the benefits of peer support in the behavioral health workforce. He has witnessed the problematic medical model that too often demoralizes or dismisses the needs of mentally ill individuals. Peer support workers develop meaningful rapport with their peers by telling them, I’ve been there too!

As the Vice President of Peer Advocacy Supports and Services for Mental Health America, Patrick has used his own lived experience with a mental illness to help others who are starting or continuing their recovery journeys. Patrick delivers training and national advocacy projects for peer specialists and professionals with a focus on human rights, social inclusion, peer support, peer services, and self-directed care.

Sheela Ivlev is an Licensed Occupational Therapist who understands the relationship between emotional and physical pain. After completing her practical training in the psychiatric field, Sheela saw how unresolved emotional stress wears down the physical body. Now through her practice, Sheela offers occupational therapy for adults with disabilities, mental illnesses, clients with pain disorders, and individuals on the autism spectrum. 

Occupational therapists are trained to assess both the emotional and physical health of their clients, but not all professionals maintain this integrated perspective. Sheela’s main goal is to help her clients with all of their occupations, any activity that enriches their life and brings them deeper meaning. Sheela’s clinical perspective is thoughtful, holistic, and always puts her clients first. 

Millions of Americans are impacted by infertility, birth trauma, and reproductive loss. Black women are more likely to be diagnosed with infertility but are less likely to seek treatment, according to Dr. Kristy Christopher-Holloway, director of New Vision Counseling Center, in Douglasville, Georgia, and an expert on the mental health impacts of infertility. In an interview with Raymond Barrett, CEO of the Telehealth Certification Institute, Dr. Christopher-Holloway discussed how telehealth is helping expand her practice in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dr. Christopher-Holloway says about 20% of the U.S. population is impacted by an infertility diagnosis every year. Black women are about 1.5 times more likely to experience the diagnosis of infertility, but they typically will seek help or treatment for the diagnosis at lesser rates.

Her current research includes perinatal mental health and infertility. “We know that this is an under-researched population area, and when there is no research we cannot do an effective treatment.”

Jay Ostrowski describes how his telemental health platform, Adaptive Telehealth, offers modern features for well-reasoned clinicians. With expertise in HIPAA compliance, Jay created his platform to anchor therapists as they walk an unstable mental health tightrope. Choosing Adaptive as your telehealth home base accommodates your clients, while attuning to your practice goals.

Executive Director of the National Association of Social Workers in New York State (NASW-NYS), Dr. Samantha Fletcher, has a PhD in social work and is a passionate advocate for ethical social work practice. Samantha argues that racial disparities are permeating almost every aspect of our society. Her even-handed response calls for education, personal responsibility, and having enough humility to be wrong.

The social work profession was built on generalist practice. This approach gives social workers a perspective that is unique to the field: an eye for injustice that impacts social systems at the micro (person-to-person), mezzo (organization, group, and community), or macro (society at large) levels. Social workers have a distinct interpretation of social issues because of their role flexibility; and in Samantha’s view, justice is best achieved when all of these factors are considered.

Dr. Burton Tabaac has seen his fair share of emergencies as Medical Director of the Comprehensive Stroke Center in Reno, Nevada. Above all, he stresses the necessity of timely neurological evaluations as the difference-maker for stroke patients. Speaking with Ray Barrett, CEO of the Telehealth Certification Institute, Dr. Tabaac explains how the telehealth platform, TeleStroke, changes the way that patients receive emergency health services.

In severe neurological cases, every minute gone is a minute lost. TeleStroke connects experienced neurologists with patients who are undergoing the symptoms of a neurological crisis, cutting down the lag time when offering life-saving interventions. Dr. Tabaac describes TeleStroke as an exceptional off-site tool for neurologists.

Joel Miller and Angele Moss-Baker of the American Mental Health Counselors Association disclose details about the AMHCA’s newest publication—Beyond a Perfect Storm: How Racism, COVID-19, and Economic Meltdown Imperil our Mental Health—in a new interview with Ray Barrett. The authors integrated data from the US Census Bureau and the Center for Disease Control to emphasize the psychological, financial, and social repercussions of living through the COVID era. The AMHCA implores the behavioral health community to curtail the disruption fueled by COVID through local and federal advocacy efforts. With a flood of challenges washing into communities, the AMHCA suggests the best way forward: a cohesive, integrative approach to mental health service delivery.

When it comes to pediatric healthcare delivery, most parents and professionals would agree that in-office urgent care visits can be incompatible with daily demands. 

Dr. Amy Wise, DNP, ARNP, CPNP-PC, a pediatric nurse practitioner with over six years of experience, knows that respecting a family’s daily schedule makes a difference in how her patients feel. Through her virtual healthcare startup, Kovvy Health, Dr. Wise has improved patient satisfaction by allowing families to remain in their homes while seeking pediatric services. Her person-centered approach emphasizes the uniqueness that each family brings with them to her virtual exam room.