This week and next!
Reasonable Hope: Making Sense of the Current Moment

July 15 July 22
Join Dr. Kaethe Weingarten (Director, Witness to Witness Program, Migrant Clinicians Network), for the second and third learning and community sessions in our series about the impact of the pandemic on providers.

Participants are invited to participate in both events, though each will serve as a standalone learning event.

We warmly invite all behavioral health providers to participate, including school- and community-based mental health; private practice; primary care and hospital settings; and state, regional, and local mental health professionals. We recognize that the early start time may make it challenging for providers in Pacific Island regions to attend; we apologize for the inconvenience, and will share the recording links soon.
Session 2 - Managing Stress During Uncertain Times
Thursday, July 15
(Thursday) 2:00-3:30 p.m. PT / 11:00 a.m.-12:30 p.m. HT / 10:00-11:30 a.m. American Samoa
(Friday) 9:00-10:30 a.m. Marshall Islands / 8:00-9:30 a.m. Pohnpei, Kosrae / 7:00-8:30 a.m. Guam, Chuuk, Yap, CNMI / 6:00-7:30 a.m. Palau (view your time zone)
Worry, anxiety, demoralization, and languishing are some of the emotional responses to the pandemic that many are experiencing. This online seminar will review these responses and offer efficient strategies to deal with them.  A primary focus will be on the witnessing model, developed by presenter Kaethe Weingarten, PhD, that describes four different witness positions that can affect behavioral health providers in their daily lives. Ways of moving into the only effective position will be suggested. Dr. Weingarten will describe concrete ideas for remaining in one’s resilient zone – not stuck too high, not stuck too low. She will also share an approach for preventing the development of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
  • Recognize and understand emotional responses to the pandemic and effective strategies for managing emotions
  • Learn about the witnessing model and the four different witness positions affecting providers, and how to shift between them
  • Learn ways of activating self-compassion
  • Engage in a learning community of behavioral health providers that shares ideas about how to mitigate provider trauma
• • • • •

Session 3 - Grief in the Time of COVID-19: Loss, Connection, and Hope
Thursday, July 22
(Thursday) 2:00-3:30 p.m. PT / 11:00 a.m.-12:30 p.m. HT / 10:00-11:30 a.m. American Samoa
(Friday) 9:00-10:30 a.m. Marshall Islands / 8:00-9:30 a.m. Pohnpei, Kosrae / 7:00-8:30 a.m. Guam, Chuuk, Yap, CNMI / 6:00-7:30 a.m. Palau (view your time zone)
Many of us are experiencing confusion, fear, anger, and sadness as losses mount with the ongoing pandemic. Grief has also been a dominant emotion. During the pandemic, there have been constraints on public, shared expressions of grief.

In this online seminar, Kaethe Weingarten, PhD, presents materials about grief generally and grief in the circumstances of the pandemic. Discussion points will include the particular challenges of grief following estrangement or ambiguous loss. What are some ways to support others – clients, friends, colleagues, family members – without becoming overburdened? Throughout the seminar, Dr. Weingarten will open space for participants to share their experiences and form a felt sense of community. There is a need to balance despair with hope, and hope is something best done with others.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
  • Recognize and understand grief and other emotions spurred by the pandemic and effective strategies for supporting the self
  • Recognize the challenges facing people with less well-understood forms of grief
  • Build community support and connection with other mental health providers

Meet Our Presenter
Kaethe Weingarten, PhD, directs the Witness to Witness (W2W) Program for the Migrants Clinician Network. The goal of W2W is to help the helpers, primarily serving health care workers, attorneys and journalists working with vulnerable populations.

Dr. Weingarten received her doctorate from Harvard University in 1974. She has taught at Wellesley College (1975-1979), Harvard Medical School (1981-2017), where she was an Associate Clinical Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Children’s Hospital Boston and then Cambridge Health Alliance, and at the Family Institute of Cambridge (1982-2009). She founded and directed the Program in Families, Trauma and Resilience at the Family Institute of Cambridge. Internationally, she has taught in Africa, Australia, Canada, Europe and New Zealand, where she was a Fulbright Specialist.

Dr. Weingarten’s work focuses on the development and dissemination of a witnessing model. One prong of the work is about the effects of witnessing violence and trauma in the context of domestic, inter-ethnic, racial, political and other forms of conflict. The other prong of the witnessing work is in the context of healthcare, illness and disability.  Her work on reasonable hope has been widely cited. 
Get Social with Us!
 
Contact the Pacific Southwest MHTTC
 
Toll-Free: 1-844-856-1749  Email: pacificsouthwest@mhttcnetwork.org  
This announcement is supported by SAMHSA of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of a financial assistance award totaling $5,427,270 over four years (2019-2023) with 100 percent funded by SAMHSA/HHS. The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by SAMHSA/HHS, or the U.S. Government.