The Comprehensive Program to Build Resilience & Wellbeing
At best, trainers who promise significant improvements in ‘resilience and well-being’ in a one day training program will define and raise awareness as to where the organization, individual or team is at that time, on that day. That’s it. So where do you go from there?
There are no shortcuts to building resilience. Moving from, where you are to where you want to go, takes dedicated effort, strategy, and commitment – it also requires time to build resilience competencies, needs a higher financial investment over time, as well as an experienced training team with staff coach-mentors who will provide opportunities for reflection, innovation, and practice.
Resilience & wellbeing competencies need to be learned and practiced, one step at a time. Formal and informal pre and post testing as well as regular feedback by participants helps to shape the effectiveness of the program and customize it to the organization’s needs.
Why Build Resilience?
Resilience is essential in today's world. In today's workplace everyone feels pressured to get more work done, be of higher quality, with few people, in less time, with fewer budgets. In our personal lives things are changing so rapidly everyone must learn how to be change proficient, cope with unexpected setbacks, and overcome unwanted adversities.
‘The most resilient people recover from traumatic experiences stronger, better, and wiser.’
Al Siebert, quoted this in his book, "The Resiliency Advantage". This is a crucial skill for animal caregivers!
A few Successful Stories of Animal Care Resilience Training in Canada
Over the last 10 years, building resilience began to be an integral part of training in Animal Care Organizations. The value of building a comprehensive program like the ‘Better Conversations: Better Results© Program’ is gaining attention. Organizations are looking for ‘results’ and are investing more to find ‘results’.
Ontario SPCA, Stouffville, Ontario, Canada
Ontario SPCA has invested in parts of this approach since 2010. Dr. Pat’s continues to work with this incredible organization. Modules 2 and 3 are well established now (Coach Mentoring & Emotional & Social Learning). OSPCA manages Module 1, Beat Caregiver Stress, as an in-house program now. Soon several staff members will be completing the ‘Train the Trainer’ Program in the ‘Coach Mentoring’ Module. That module will then be a staff in-house training initiative also. This organization draws from many sources with the same goal – grow resilience and wellbeing in their individual staff and teams across the province.
Fredericton SPCA, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada
Smaller organizations, such as Fredericton SPCA, have not only embraced the complete ‘Better Conversations: Better Results© Comprehensive Program’, they also, after five years and counting, have made it their own.
Fredericton SPCA under the leadership of the Director of Operations, Annette James, has championed this initiative with her staff and with the blessing and support of the FSPCA Board. Soon she will be training others in some of the program modules in Atlantic Canada.
FSPCA also joined Dr. Pat Comley on a FORMAL RESEARCH initiative in 2015. The Research found that the FSPCA’s culture gradually shifted from a challenging workplace in 2012 to a very resilient one in 2015. Staff grew competencies in communication, mindset, and increased their productivity, and effectiveness on the job. Most importantly, the research found this organization much more effective in handling the ongoing challenges in workplace/caregiver stress that face all animal caregivers on a daily basis.
Fredericton SPCA is very grateful to Eileen Iwanicki, from Fredericton NB, Canada, who gave a sizable donation that partially paid for the training required for, the ‘Better Conversations: Better Results® Comprehensive Program’.