Foster Care Training

This training has two distinct parts: first a didactic component, and then an experiential component. Both will focus on the theory, impact and management of vicarious trauma, secondary traumatic stress, and compassion fatigue. This training will begin with administration of the ProQOL (Professional Quality of Life measure, a self-report measure that identifies burnout, secondary traumatic stress, and compassion satisfaction). Participants will score and interpret the measure. We will then proceed to an in-depth review of Dr. Pearlman’s significant framework of Vicarious Trauma. In this review, we’ll define the term, explore who is most at-risk and why, examine signs and symptoms of vicarious trauma, as well as Dr. Pearlman’s concept of the two levels of responding to vicarious trauma, which she calls Coping with Vicarious Trauma, and Transforming Vicarious Trauma. We will then comprehensively review the neurophysiology of stress, including an overview of the Polyvagal Theory.