Strategies to Manage Vicarious Trauma & Compassion Fatigue for First Responders,
Frontline & High-exposure Workers


Online Seminar

5 December 2023

People experiencing physical or emotional trauma, vulnerability or risk at work often leads to various reactions including vicarious traumatisation, compassion fatigue, and burnout. The last few years have been undeniably tough with COVID escalating and compounding these experiences for all staff.

Action on vicarious trauma is of paramount importance to these organisations and their staff. Failing to embed vicarious trauma mitigation strategies, supervision or self-care for these workers can have a significant impact on their emotional well-being, their ability to effectively perform their jobs, their compassion for patients/clients, the quality of service delivery and their longevity in the role.

Impacts are often cumulative and if unaddressed, affect emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual well-being, personal relationships and professional capacity.

Whether you are personally impacted in your work, or seeking to address the risks and realities of vicarious trauma for your organisation, this seminar will help to unpack, explore and offer strategies for what you can do differently today, and every day to actively reduce the emotional toll and build resilience.

This half-day online seminar balances presentation, discussion and experiential exercises, providing a safe forum to explore the interaction between you and your work. You will develop a ‘tool kit’ for self-care and strategies to safeguard and enhance resilience, whether for yourself or for your wider team.

View the event website

Benefits of attending:

  • Gain a heightened understanding of vicarious trauma – secondary traumatic stress – compassion fatigue – burnout – grief
  • Explore risk and resilience factors on a personal and professional level
  • Identify how post-traumatic transference and countertransference impact and play out
  • Clearly comprehend the signs and symptoms in yourself and others
  • Explore the interaction between you and your work
  • Apply self-care and strategies to ensure you protect yourself and build resilience as a high-exposure worker
  • Safeguard and enhance your emotional well-being and ability to effectively perform your job
  • Avoid compassion fatigue and burnout and continue to thrive in your role

Meet your facilitator:

Naomi Halpern, Director, Delphi Training & Consulting

Naomi is trained as a social worker but has also worked with children in short-stay emergency care, homeless youth, and convicted offenders in government and non-government organisations, providing advocacy, psychosocial education, recreational opportunities, skills training, supervision and counselling.

Naomi provides clinical consultation for complex post-traumatic stress, dissociative disorders and related impacts of childhood developmental trauma and abuse including self-harming behaviour, suicidality and substance abuse, for mental health professionals working with adult victim-survivors of intergenerational trauma, gender-based violence, and other trauma. She also works as a consultant and trainer for law firms, providing trauma-informed training and supporting lawyers’ mental health and well-being. She has a wealth of experience working with people across socioeconomic groups, faiths, and sexual orientations.

Who should attend?

The course is for representatives from a first responder, frontline, high risk and exposure organisations as well as those working with adult survivors of complex trauma, homelessness, welfare, legal & justice teams working with victims and witnesses of crime, corrective services, child protection and social work, domestic & family violence professionals, emergency departments, psychiatric facilities, hospitals & aged care facilities, teaching professionals, and community service organisations.

It is appropriate for all workers who work with trauma clients and/or are exposed to traumatic material, information or content. It is also relevant for team leaders/managers who are responsible for staff wellbeing or those who wish to better support vicarious resilience in the workplace.

View the event website

Secure your spot



Use the code GOVCAREER and save $50 off your seminar registration.

Additional discounts are available for group bookings.