TAPS TRAINING WEBINAR THURSDAY DEC. 3RD EXAMINES SECONDARY TRAUMA AND COMPASSION FATIGUE

TAPS TRAINING WEBINAR THURSDAY DEC. 3RD EXAMINES SECONDARY TRAUMA AND COMPASSION FATIGUE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – Dec. 1, 2009

WASHINGTON – James S. Gordon, MD, author of Unstuck: Your Guide to the Seven-Stage Journey Out of Depression, will lead a professional education Webinar Thursday on concerns for emotional caregivers for the military community.

Doctor Gordon, who has worked extensively with US military, will lead the training entitled “Professionals Working with the Grieving and Traumatized: Recognizing and Caring for Your Own Secondary Trauma and Compassion Fatigue," to educate care giving professionals working with military trauma about the dangers of ignoring their own compassion fatigue.

“This is such an important issue,” says Dr. Gordon. “Before we can help others deal with trauma, stress, and grief, we need to learn to come to terms with and successfully address these issues in our own lives. As Hippocrates long ago pointed out, we cannot help others until we have begun to heal ourselves.”

The TAPS Continuing Education & Training Series for Caregivers provides information for thousands of professionals including (but not limited to): chaplains, military leadership, family readiness officers, social workers, nurses, counselors, marriage and family therapists, case managers, employee assistance professionals, school counselors, program directors, and other health and mental health professionals interacting with and providing services to military service members and their families.

“Our goal for the Continuing Education & Training Series for Caregivers is to increase awareness and educate professionals about current mental health challenges faced by U.S. military service members and their families,” said Jill Harrington LaMorie, TAPS Director of Professional Education.

The seminar will be offered Thursday, December 3, 2009 at 12pm Eastern Time, 11am Central Time, 10am Mountain Time, and 9am Pacific Time. Offered via a webinar interface, attendees can interactively participate through their computer and view the presentation while listening through a phone.

Registration is required and available at www.taps.org/professionaleducation . For questions about the program or registration, please contact education@taps.org

All military personnel, Department of Veterans Affairs personnel, and Give an Hour professionals with a valid work email address are invited to attend free of charge.

Civilians who are not working for the military or the VA are asked to pay a small program fee of $25. Students with a valid college or university email address can attend for a reduced price of $15.

Certificates of Attendance can be provided for those who attend the entire webinar. This program is approved by the National Association of Social Workers, Provider # 886505639, for 1.0 continuing education contact hours. Provider approved by the California Board of Registered Nursing, Provider # CEP15218, for 1.0 continuing education contact hours. The Association of Professional Chaplains will accept certificates of attendance for use in reporting continuing education hours. Please check with your state licensing board for professional requirements for continuing education.

About Our Speaker
Doctor Gordon is a clinical professor of psychiatry and family medicine at Georgetown University’s School of Medicine and director of the Center of Mind and Body Medicine.

About TAPS
Since its founding in 1992, TAPS has provided comfort and care to more than 25,000 surviving military family members. TAPS provides ongoing emotional help, hope and healing to all who are grieving the death of a loved one in military service to America, regardless of relationship to the deceased, geography, or circumstance of the death. TAPS meets its mission by providing peer-based support, crisis care, casualty casework assistance, and grief and trauma resources. Services are provided free of charge. For more information go to www.taps.org or call the toll-free crisis line at 800.959.TAPS.