Bearing Witness and Being Well: Strategies for High-Stress and Trauma-Exposed IRCC Work

IRCC Fall 2026

Slide Deck

Click here to download a notetaking version of the slides.

Resources

988 - Canada’s 24hr Suicide Prevention Hotline

Lifting Heavy Things — Laura Khoudari

The Burnout Challenge (book) by Christina Maslach

The State of Mental Health in Canada 2024 (CMHA Report)

The National Standard for Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace Full Report

Learn About the National Standard (video)

Towards a Healthy and Sustainable Practice of Law in Canada (University of Sherbrooke Report)

Vicarious Resilience research (Hernandez et. al.)

“The assumption of pre-existing ability.” Wade, A. ‘Small Acts of Living: Everyday Resistance to Violence and Other Forms of Oppression.’ Contemporary Family Therapy 19, 23–39 (1997)

PROQOL.org (Professional Quality of Life Scale questionnaire)

Vicarious Trauma Self-Assessment

PTSD Coach (website and app from US Dep’t of Veterans’ Affairs)

Mental Health Continuum Chart

Mental Health Continuum Self-Check

Self-Compassion practices by Dr. Kristin Neff

Coming Home to Secondary Traumatic Stress by Françoise Mathieu

Low-Impact Debriefing Protocol (The Compassion Fatigue Workbook by Françoise Mathieu)

Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself (book) by Nedra Glover Tawwab

Types of Boundaries (beyond just “no”) Worksheet

Other Resources: These are other resources I thought might be useful to you:

Trauma-Informed Practice:

Learning Brain vs. Survival Brain (video). This is a great explanation of why it can be hard for folks who experience trauma to do things we’re asking of them. Refers to work with children, but is applicable to adults as well.
Trauma Lens Exercise
Trauma-Informed Lawyering: What It Is and Why It Matters
Trauma-Informed Workplace Assessment Tool
Trauma-Informed: The Trauma Toolkit

Workplace Strategies:

Workplace Strategies for Mental Health: resources for employees, leaders and orgs. Good self-advocacy resources here!
Work Won’t Love You Back (book) by Sarah Jaffe
Resilience, Balance & Meaning: Supporting our Lives and our Work in High Stress, Trauma-Exposed Workplaces and Building Resilient Teams: Facilitating Workplace Wellness & Organizational Health in Trauma-Exposed Environments by Dr. Patricia Fisher

Boundaries:

Your 3-step guide to better boundaries at work (video) - Nedra Glover Tawwab
Here’s a video containing some great ideas for boundary phrases when dealing with challenging, aggressive, rude, etc. interactions; it talks about how to stay professional while being assertive. And this article about Managing Emotionally Charged Client Interactions has some really useful strategies.

Compassion Fatigue, Secondary Trauma, Moral Distress, Stress:

The Compassion Fatigue Workbook by Françoise Mathieu
Beyond the Cliff (Video) by Laura Van Dernoot Lipsky - talks about the impact of secondary trauma on trauma-exposed helping professionals (cw: brief mention of suicidal ideation)