Emotional Resilience Programs for Educators and Health Care Professionals
The Emotional Resilience (ER) Programs are 120-hour online programs, based in neuroscience, mindfulness principles and positive psychology, that have been developed to improve emotional agility that leads to professional and personal resilience.
The programs have any time start dates and allow individuals to go at their own pace from the safety and comfort of home.
We offer five distinct ER Programs, each with a unique occupation-specific focus.
- Emotional Resilience for Teachers (K-12)
- Emotional Resilience for Adult Educators
- Emotional Resilience for Physicians
- Emotional Resilience for Nurses
- Emotional Resilience for Personal Support Workers (PSW)
About the ER Programs
The ER programs were developed to help education and health care professionals cope with stress and overcome burnout by learning to:
- decrease emotional exhaustion
- manage depersonalization
- optimize awareness of emotional reactivity
- decrease unproductive mood changes
- bring about greater comfort in managing working relationships
- reconnect with patients or students and co-workers
- provide a balance between personal and professional life
- improve levels of mindfulness
- examine eating habits and make healthier choices
- modify sleep patterns and schedules to be better rested and more energetic
- incorporate brief but powerful and healthy exercise into daily routines
- take pride in and feel passionate about work and career choices
- rejuvenate both mentally and physically
- develop a personal empowerment plan of action
Curriculum Content:
All programs have three units and include:
- learning modules on the foundational principles of the origin and science of emotional resilience, mindfulness, positive psychology, and emotional intelligence
- tools and techniques to provide a relief – emotional triage – for challenging situations individuals might encounter every day
- ‘rehabilitation’ style exercises that support individuals in managing their persistent stressors
- activities that deepen mind and body connection and enhance emotional healing to manage and/or prevent burnout
- two online review tests that allow participants as many attempts as they like
- a final assignment to design “your personal empowerment plan of action”
Each program is also Occupation-Specific:
Within each program the universal strategies and techniques of Emotional Resilience are applied but then further exemplified and explained using case studies and scenarios within the occupational field.
For example, “Burnout [for PSWs] is a major issue, which is compounded by “compassion fatigue” frequently described as a problem among staff having to cope with grief as residents die; high expectations from families, management and government; stressful workloads; and inadequate (or nonexistent) emotional support” (Ontario Health Coalition). Occupation specific activities in the PSW program include dealing with: a patient who is suffering, an overly demanding patient, Internet-savvy patients, a patient who is complaining about your care, supporting a patient who has just received bad news, a patient who doesn’t pay attention to which medicine to take, a patient who doesn’t believe in/want to take medicine but is sick, when you have made an error in assessment/patient care, restorative care, end of life care, and more.
Foundations of Emotional Resilience:
Based in neuroscience, mindfulness principles and positive psychology, the focus of ER programs is to help employees cultivate awareness and deal with thoughts, emotions, body and interplay between them in relation to high pressure work environments. It provides employees with positive everyday strategies to build resilience and tools to improve decision making and communication. The core values of ER programs lie in the effective management of stress in today’s workplace and in the reality that a successful organization cannot function without content employees.
Program Duration:
Each ER program is 120 hours and allows participants to go at their own pace. The program can be completed in as little as three weeks. Participants have up to six months to complete their program.
Sample schedules:
- Accelerated model – 3 weeks; dedicating an average of 40 hours per week
- Full-time model – 4 weeks; dedicating an average of 30 hours per week
- Part-time model – 6 to 12 weeks; dedicating 10 to 20 hours per week
- Occasional model – 3 to 6 months; dedicating time whenever available and in the mood
How the Online Programs Work
The ER programs are delivered fully online in asynchronous format to allow participants to go at their own pace and create their own study schedule. An online instructor is assigned to each student for program support as well. There are two online tests included in each program as review. Participants are required to achieve a 70% on each test to “pass” and may have as many attempts as desired. Participants are also encouraged to maintain a reflective journal and prompted when to make journal entries and have a final assignment to design their own personal empowerment plan of action. Upon completion of the program a digital Certificate in Emotional Resilience in the respective field is issued by email. *Please note that all programs contain video content, so sound is required. The only technology requirement is an Internet connection, and all programs are duly designed for study on mobile devices as well anywhere, anytime.
Background; Why is this so Important?
Coping with Pandemic Stress and Burnout
Stress and burnout are significant problems in professions that deal with human services; educators, healthcare professionals, and personal support workers have especially felt this with COVID-19. Balanced emotions are foundations to wellness, performance, and job satisfaction. Without effective coping mechanisms in place, individuals can suffer emotional and physical setbacks that can lead to stress, job dissatisfaction and burnout.
The goal of ER programs is to help working professionals in high-stress careers manage stressful communication and provide tools for self-awareness, self-monitoring, self-care, thus increase job satisfaction and prevent burnout. ER programs provide training for practical sustainable and transferable strategies that will allow individuals emotionally suffering from the pandemic to step back, rebalance and refocus.
Creating Solutions to Staff Shortages in Education and Health Care
Emotional Resilience is also extremely important for employee retention and keeping professionals in the education and healthcare industries. According to CBC Canada, roughly one-third of teachers recently surveyed said they are considering leaving teaching based on their experiences this year (2021), and 1 in 3 Ontario registered practical nurses are considering quitting due to the pandemic, in another poll. According to Health Force Ontario, 50% of personal support workers are retained in the health care sector for fewer than 5 years, and 43% left the sector due to burnout. In another recent survey by the Ontario Personal Support Workers Association, “PSWs who left the field were more than twice as likely to say that they do so because of burnout than because of pay issues”. The solution to staff shortages created due to burnout in the education and healthcare systems should not only be to quickly train more people to fill vacant positions, but to help and support those currently working in the field whose mental and physical health is suffering as a result. Stress and burnout are among the leading causes for these already highly skilled and trained individuals in the profession to leave. Burnout can result in losing the passion for the profession, reduced patience with students/patients/co-workers, mental and physical health issues, sleep disorders, poor job performance, increased absenteeism, desire to quit, and leaving the profession early.
With Emotional Resilience, education and health care professionals almost ready to give up or who unfortunately already have, can get back to work and to being passionate about their very important work, be happy, healthy, and stay where they truly want to be and belong.
Benefits of Emotional Resilience:
In addition to an increase in the retention of staff, employers will find that upon completion of an ER program that employees will be more motivated and energized, be more self-aware, increase in productivity, improve on decision-making, have better social skills, and overall be happier and healthier, physically and mentally. This happier, healthier, and more positive staff and working environment is then in turn better for students/patients. Employees also greatly appreciate the mental health support from their employer and desire to help; it affirms their recognition of the vital roles they fill in our communities.
Tuition Fee and How to Register
The tuition fee for any ER program is $500.
How to Purchase and Register: Simple, safe, secure, using the “Add to Cart” button below. Please allow up to 48 hours for your course registration to be processed and for you to receive your user name and password by email.
Emotional Resilience for Personal Support Workers (PSW)
Emotional Resilience for Teachers (K-12)
Once submitted, the online instructor will contact the participant within 48 hours with the link to the program and unique username and password to start any time. Participants have up to 6 months to access and complete the program.
Also Looking for ER Training Partners
Looking to provide ER support to your staff? For School Boards, Adult Education Institutions, Hospitals, Clinics, Long Term Care and Retirement homes, Canadian College of Educators would be happy to partner with your organization to offer these programs to your employees through the Canada Job Grant Program, subsidized back-to-work training programs, professional development initiatives, or to seek government funding through federal or provincial/territorial skills development funding proposals.
For more information contact: [email protected]
Cited Sources:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/eastern-ontario-teacher-covid-questionnaire-1.5778396 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/nurses-ontario-covid-19-burnout-survey-1.5890799 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/ontario-health-report-psw-1.5468946 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/study-psws-ontario-long-term-care-homes-1.5355808 https://www.ontario.ca/page/long-term-care-staffing-study