Sitting with Suffering

Caring for those who are seriously ill exposes us to a multitude of losses and invites us to support those who suffer. This interactive workshop will explore the impact of how our work environment, cultural background, and personal history of past losses influence our understanding and expression of suffering. Despite the cumulative effect this has on healthcare teams, few settings offer a safe place to process these powerful feelings, and few clinicians have had formal training in coping with grief. Social workers may find that they are expected to provide comfort to both families and colleagues without access to care for themselves. Strategies to address these complex and interconnected issues will be explored, with tools and resources provided.

Shirley Otis-Green is the founder of Collaborative Caring, a consulting practice dedicated to enhancing excellence in the delivery of contextualized care to more equitably address the symptoms and stress of serious illness. Her education, research, and consultation efforts focus on quality of life, interprofessional leadership, and creating meaningful organizational change. As Principal Investigator on studies with over $3.5 million in external funding, her work has been recognized with numerous awards and disseminated through more than 100 publications and 500 professional presentations. Shirley is a Co-Investigator and Co-Project Director of the National Cancer Institute-funded educational grant, ESPEC Oncology: Transforming Psychosocial and Palliative Cancer Care - a national workforce initiative designed to enhance the leadership and clinical quality improvement skills of oncology social workers. She was recently selected as an expert panelist by the National Coalition for Hospice and Palliative Care to update the Clinical Practice Guidelines for Quality Palliative Care. Shirley is a National Association of Social Workers Pioneer, California Health Care Foundation Leadership Fellow, and a Distinguished Social Work Practitioner in the National Academies of Practice. She was among the first to receive a Master of Arts in Health Research - Palliative Care from Lancaster University in Great Britain, and is co-editor of The Oxford Textbook of Palliative Social Work (Second Edition). 

Continuing Education Hours

Completion of this class will result in the receipt of two and one-half (2.5) continuing education hours. CEHs are not awarded for partial completion of the class.

You will receive the Zoom link for joining the class by the day before the class. IF YOU HAVE NOT RECEIVED THE LINK BY THIS TIME, PLEASE CHECK YOUR SPAM FOLDER. 

You will need a computer and a reliable WiFi connection. The computer may be a desktop or a laptop. It may be an Apple or Windows computer.

If you have never used Zoom before, you will likely be prompted to download an applet, which is a small program that allows Zoom to communicate with your computer. This is safe and you will need to do this to join the class.

It is NOT advised that you participate using a table (e.g., an iPad) or a cellular phone. The software is not optimized for these devices.

Please plan to join the online class 15 minutes before the start time to be sure that you don’t have any problems connecting. We cannot provide technical support to you and refunds won’t be offered if you have technical problems. If you have any questions or concerns about this, please contact us at [email protected] at least a few days before the class.