Description: While the term VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous) has been in vogue, it resounds with an especially urgent note in the context of COVID 19 and the multiple sources of global uncertainty on several fronts. Education and training are undergoing a fundamental shift as it becomes transformed through greater awakening in human consciousness to help unlock our collective, creative genius. This talk will explore the inner capacities and transformations that our VUCA world is calling forth, where ambiguity becomes a source of possibility, and the future is embraced as mystery to be celebrated. It will also touch upon the increasing levels of human alienation and anxiety that the pandemic unleashed and ways of developing emotional resilience to live powerfully in the emerging world. The talk will draw upon Eastern and Western perspectives in exploring the alchemy of transforming stressful emotions like anger, sadness, and fear that we are universally experiencing into a deeper realization of our creative potential.
10:10 – 10:20AM Break
10:20 – 11:00AM Breakout Sessions (5 Options)
Description: This training will explore qualities of healthy relationships, and discuss red flags for relationships in distress. Your local Intimate Partner Violence Assistance Program has a number of resources for Veterans and their partners that will also be discussed.
Description: Recent events in Afghanistan are impacting the mental and emotional health of some of our Veteran population. The VA has a variety of resources to help Veteran who have been impacted process their feelings. This presentation will feature a Veteran/Staff panel moderated by Supervisory Psychologist and PTSD Clinical Team Lead, Heather Flores.
Description: This presentation will review VA Major Benefit Programs and services.
Description: This presentation will be geared to those who are clinicians and some of the stuck points or barriers that providers experience when talking about lethal means safety, asking questions about suicide, etc.
Description: What is it that makes you good at what you do? Typically, words like “caring,” “empathy,” “compassion,” etc. come up. These attributes of the helping professions are required to be “good” at what we do, but they also “set us up” for compassion fatigue, burnout, moral distress, etc. This presentation helps to give names to what we may have personally experienced in the course of our work and serves to normalize much of our shared experience. We also will be introduced to various self-assessment tools and self-care exercises to help us improve our self-care practices.
11:00 – 11:10AM Break
11:10 – 11:50AM Breakout Sessions (5 Options)
Description: This session will review programming within the VA Caregiver Support Program. Campaign for Inclusive Care will be discussed to highlight the importance of caregivers involved in Veteran’s care journey.
Description: Research has demonstrated that racially-related traumatic events and stressors have had deleterious effects on the mental and physical health of people of color, particularly African Americans. The Race Based Stress & Trauma (RBST) Group was originally developed by psychology residents at the Central Texas VA “to fill a gap in clinical services that addressed the unique challenge and psychological impact that generations of race-based stress and trauma experiences have had on the health and psychological well-being of veterans of color. Our collective hope is that such services become commonplace offerings in mental health settings nationwide” (Carlson, Luster, Endsley & Williams, 2019). These groups are now represented at more than 20 VA’s around the country. Attendees of this presentation will examine the impact of racial trauma on the physical and mental health of Veterans or color and explore the benefits of the RBST Groups for our Veterans.
Option 3:
Whole Health Steps toward Amplifying Well-Being: For Providers and Veterans (Rosalie Diaz and Jamie Huckins-Barker)
Link:
Click here to join the Whole Health Steps toward Amplifying Well-Being presentation
Description: This presentation will explore self-care from Whole Health perspective and explore signs of burnout and discuss its effects. It will also explore tools to use for developing a personal self-care practice to manifest one’s well-being and provide updates to Whole Health System at VANEOHS
Description: VA S.A.V.E. is a program that can give tools for recognizing that someone may be in crisis and how to respond. This is a national program.
Option 5: Military Sexual Trauma: Promoting Healing through Understanding (Sara Perez)