Post-Conference Workshop

Organizational responsibilities regarding psychological health and safety in the workplace and strategies for self-care for forensic mental health professionals

PRESENTER: Dr. Brianne K. Layden

DATE: June 27, 2025

TIME: 9am - 5pm

CONTINUING EDUCATION CREDITS: 7 credits

COST: $400 CAD (includes 2 catered coffee break; lunch NOT included)

DESCRIPTION: 

For decades, scholars have investigated and reported on the nature and prevalence of negative psychological health outcomes experienced by various forensic professionals as a result of the work they do (e.g., judges, lawyers, psychologists, counsellors, social workers, child protective service workers; Bride, 2007; Bride et al., 2007; Hatcher & Noakes, 2010; Jaffe et al., 2003; Maguire & Byrne, 2017; Pirelli et al., 2020). Recent work by Pirelli and colleagues (2020) further clarified and defined these potential negative impacts, including vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue, and burnout, and called for additional research to assist in the prevention of psychological harms resulting from forensic work. The costs of failing to care for oneself when working in high-stakes forensic contexts is staggering—for the impacted individual, the organization, and society at large. Fortunately, several countries around the world have increased spending and efforts to identify psychological health and safety problems in the workplace, particularly when such harms are the direct result of workplace tasks. For example, several countries have collaborated to create frameworks (e.g., the European Framework for Psychosocial Risk Management) and information documents (e.g., Workplace Stress: A Collective Challenge, 2016) to assist workplaces enhance the psychological health and safety of their work force.

The focus of this workshop will highlight the nature of the problem, as well as draw on recent international work with respect to the identification and mitigation of psychological health and safety problems in the workplace, with a special focus on civil and criminal forensic settings. Specifically, the goals of the workshop are to: 1) help both organizations and forensic mental health professionals understand the nature and extent of the problems associated with declining psychological health and safety in the workplace; 2) assist organizations and forensic mental health professionals understand their legal and professional responsibilities with respect to self-care in the workplace; 3) review international guidelines and tools for identifying and responding to psychological health and safety in the workplace; 4) review warning signs for declining self-care; and 5) identify effective strategies for dealing with distress and increasing effective emotion regulation, drawing on specific evidence-based distress tolerance and emotion regulation skills from dialectical behaviour therapy.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES: 

1. Define and differentiate secondary traumatic stress, vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue and burnout

2. Discuss organizational and professional responsibilities with respect to self-care 

3. Identify international guidelines and tools for psychological health and safety in the workplace

4. Identify individual, relational, organizational, and extra-organizational warning signs for declining self-care 

5. Identify and discuss effective institutional and team strategies for self-care, as well as individual strategies for self-care, drawing on evidence-based skills from Dialectical Behaviour Therapy