How is compassion fatigue training different from a standard employee wellness program?

Compassion fatigue training differs from standard employee wellness programs by treating it as a clinical occupational hazard rather than a general well-being issue. Instead of offering broad stress-reduction strategies, it focuses on the measurable impact of secondary trauma and equips organizations with targeted interventions. Frameworks like FABULOUS TRANSFORMATION™ emphasize systemic change—workload design, leadership awareness, and recovery structures—rather than placing responsibility solely on individual self-care.

What types of organizations book compassion fatigue speakers?

Organizations that book compassion fatigue speakers typically include healthcare systems, hospice and palliative care networks, law enforcement agencies, social service organizations, and emergency medical services. These sectors face sustained exposure to secondary trauma, making targeted training essential. Speakers like Barbara Rubel have worked extensively across these environments, addressing compassion fatigue as an occupational risk and helping organizations implement systemic resilience strategies.

What is secondhand trauma called?

Secondhand trauma is most commonly called secondary traumatic stress (STS), and is also referred to as vicarious trauma. STS describes trauma symptoms resulting from indirect exposure to another person’s traumatic experiences, while vicarious trauma refers to the cumulative impact on a helper’s beliefs and worldview over time. Training programs, such as those by Barbara Rubel, often address STS, vicarious trauma, and compassion fatigue together as related conditions (Figley, 1995; Stamm, 2010).

What are the 4 stages of compassion fatigue?

The most cited clinical frameworks (Figley; Stamm’s ProQOL) do not formally define four stages of compassion fatigue; however, in practice it is often described as progressing through enthusiasm, stagnation, frustration, and apathy. Initial engagement and purpose gradually decline into reduced satisfaction, then emotional strain and irritability, and ultimately detachment or numbness. This four-stage model is a practical heuristic aligned with underlying constructs of burnout and secondary traumatic stress.

Is there a cost range for booking a compassion fatigue speaker?

Program fees vary based on format, duration, and travel. Contact Griefwork Center, Inc. for a custom quote.

What credentials does a compassion fatigue speaker need?

A compassion fatigue speaker does not require a single standardized credential, but credibility is typically established through relevant clinical education, specialized certifications, publications, and extensive field experience. For example, Barbara Rubel holds a master’s degree, multiple professional certifications in traumatic stress and bereavement, is a published author, and has decades of experience training high-risk professions. These combined qualifications demonstrate subject-matter expertise and practical authority in addressing compassion fatigue.

Griefwork Center, Inc. | Barbara Rubel | Compassion Fatigue Training

Barbara is founder of Griefwork Center, Inc.

Griefwork Center, Inc. is a professional training and education organization founded and led by nationally recognized author, speaker, and trainer Barbara Rubel. Based in Kendall Park, New Jersey, the organization specializes in compassion fatigue, vicarious trauma, secondary traumatic stress, grief, and organizational resilience, delivering evidence-informed programs for healthcare systems, hospice and palliative care organizations, first responder agencies, behavioral health providers, social service organizations, victim services, and other helping professions throughout the United States.

Griefwork Center equips organizations with practical strategies to strengthen workforce well-being, support resilient leadership, reduce the occupational impact of trauma exposure, and build healthier workplace cultures. Rather than offering temporary inspiration or generic self-care advice, its programs provide actionable frameworks that leaders and professionals can immediately apply to improve individual resilience, team performance, and long-term organizational health.

Whether you’re supporting healthcare professionals, first responders, behavioral health teams, or other helping professionals, Griefwork Center provides evidence-informed training that transforms awareness into practical action—helping individuals, leaders, and organizations build resilience that lasts.

Why Organizations Trust Griefwork Center and Barbara Rubel

See why healthcare systems, first responder agencies, hospice organizations, and other helping professions across the country invite Barbara Rubel to educate, inspire, and equip their teams with practical strategies for building resilience and supporting workforce well-being.

organizations trust Griefwork Center's Barbara Rubel

Books published by Griefwork Center, Inc. and authored by Barbara Rubel

Published Author

Barbara Rubel is the author and co-author of numerous books on grief, loss, and compassion fatigue, most of which are published by Griefwork Center, Inc. Her work has helped professionals across the country better understand the emotional impact of caregiving and develop healthier ways to support themselves and others.

View Barbara's Books

What Griefwork Center, Inc. Offers

Griefwork Center, Inc. provides professional training programs and keynote presentations for organizations keynote presentations for organizations whose workforces are at high risk of compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma. These are not generic wellness workshops or one-hour motivational talks. They are structured, clinically grounded programs built on decades of research into the occupational hazards facing healthcare workers, first responders, grief counselors, hospice staff, and social service professionals.

Multi-session training programs

Introduce and embed the FABULOUS TRANSFORMATION™ framework for sustained organizational resilience

Books and educational resources

Barbara Rubel’s books and publications extend the reach of the training into self-directed professional development

Keynote presentations

On compassion fatigue, secondary traumatic stress, and vicarious trauma – designed for conferences, staff development days, and organizational training events

Peer support program design

Includes implementing and sustaining a vicarious trauma-responsive peer support program within healthcare and first responder organizations

Rave Reviews About the Programs

The FABULOUS TRANSFORMATION® Methodology

A structured approach to resilience that moves beyond coping toward growth and transformation.

The FABULOUS TRANSFORMATION® framework is the proprietary, evidence-informed methodology at the heart of Griefwork Center’s training programs. Its eight interconnected dimensions help professionals respond to the impact of emotionally demanding work while recognizing the workplace conditions that influence well-being:

F – Flexibility: Developing adaptive responses to occupational stress by adjusting thoughts, emotions, and responses as circumstances change.
A – Attitude: Recognizing how mindset, perceptions, and emotional responses influence the experience of occupational stress and compassion fatigue.
B – Boundaries: Establishing healthy professional and personal limits that protect emotional resources while supporting compassionate, ethical work.
U – Understanding Job Satisfaction: Recognizing the personal and organizational factors that influence fulfillment, motivation, performance, well-being, and retention.
L – Laughter: Using healthy humor and laughter to manage stress, shift perspective, strengthen relationships, and support emotional well-being.
O – Optimism: Cultivating optimism and hope to support perspective, purposeful action, resilience, and continued growth.
U – United: Strengthening connection, belonging, peer support, and shared purpose rather than navigating emotionally demanding work in isolation.
S – Self-Compassion: Supporting individual and organizational practices that recognize human limits and create healthier responses to trauma-exposed work.

Together, these eight dimensions connect individual awareness and action with relationships, workplace conditions, and organizational support. FABULOUS TRANSFORMATION® helps professionals and organizations move beyond coping toward greater resilience, meaning, connection, professional growth, and renewed purpose.

Organizational Speaking and Training Programs

Griefwork Center, Inc. offers two signature speaking and training programs designed to strengthen professional well-being and help professionals better support those experiencing trauma, grief, and loss.

FABULOUS TRANSFORMATION®

From Vicarious Trauma to Growth, Resilience, and Well-Being

This flagship training walks participants through the complete FABULOUS Transformation® framework, building from awareness of compassion fatigue mechanisms to practical application of resilience drivers. Participants learn to identify their own compassion fatigue signatures, understand the neurological and emotional mechanisms behind secondary traumatic stress, and develop personalized resilience plans using the FABULOUS TRANSFORMATION® framework.

Outcomes organizations can expect from this program include increased staff awareness of compassion fatigue warning signs, improved self-care practices and boundary-setting skills, stronger team cohesion around shared challenges, and practical tools for managing the emotional weight of caregiving work.

Learning Objectives

Describe the impact of compassion fatigue, vicarious trauma, and moral injury.
Describe how exposure to others’ trauma can impact emotional, mental, and physical well-being.
Apply evidence-informed strategies to mitigate the effects of vicarious trauma and enhance emotional well-being.
Distinguish between the effects of vicarious trauma and the positive outcomes of vicarious resilience and vicarious post-traumatic growth.
Develop a personalized self-care plan that integrates tools for managing emotional exposure, fostering resilience, and encouraging personal growth.

PALETTE OF GRIEF®

Practical Tools for Understanding and Supporting Grief

Palette of Grief® is a practical, reflective framework that helps professionals better understand the many dimensions of grief without relying solely on the details of a person’s loss narrative. It gives clinicians and other professional helpers a structured way to recognize and explore emotional, cognitive, physical, behavioral, and spiritual responses to loss.

The program can address grief following many types of loss, with particular attention to traumatic grief and suicide loss. Participants gain practical tools, language, and greater confidence for supporting grieving clients while remaining attentive to the emotional impact this work can have on the professionals providing care.

Learning Objectives

Recognize the multidimensional nature of grief, including emotional, cognitive, physical, behavioral, and spiritual responses.
Use the Palette of Grief® framework to explore a client’s grief experience without requiring the full loss narrative.
Identify considerations unique to traumatic grief and suicide loss, including stigma and complex responses to loss.
Apply practical tools and language to support clients experiencing grief and traumatic loss.
Strengthen awareness of professional well-being while working with clients affected by grief and loss.

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Who Griefwork Center, Inc. Serves

Griefwork Center, Inc.’s programs are designed for organizations where compassion fatigue is an occupational reality rather than an occasional occurrence. Any role requiring sustained empathic engagement with human suffering carries an ongoing risk of secondary traumatic stress.

Our evidence-informed training provides practical strategies that strengthen workforce resilience, reduce the occupational impact of compassion fatigue and secondary traumatic stress, and help organizations build healthier, more sustainable workplace cultures. Rather than offering temporary inspiration or generic self-care advice, these programs deliver measurable, lasting strategies that professionals and leaders can apply long after the training ends.

Primary audiences include:

Hospitals and health systems – physicians, nursing staff, physician assistants, patient care technicians, social workers, and chaplains. These professionals face compounding trauma exposure that standard employee assistance programs are not equipped to address.
Hospice and palliative care organizations – supervisors, managers, HR professionals, clinical directors, and end-of-life care providers who absorb grief and loss as a daily professional experience
First responder agencies – law enforcement officers, emergency medical services, fire departments, paramedics, EMTs and emergency communications (911 dispatch) whose occupational reality involves repeated exposure to traumatic events, mass casualty incidents, and the cumulative weight of community crisis. Compassion fatigue in first responder populations is significantly under identified and undertreated
Community mental health and social service organizations – case managers, child protective services workers, homeless services staff, domestic violence advocates, and substance use counselors who navigate complex trauma in client populations while managing institutional resource constraints and systemic secondary stressors.
Pediatric and oncology care teams – specialty medical environments with disproportionately high secondary trauma exposure

Organizational leaders and supervisors – Managers who carry both their own compassion fatigue risk and the secondary obligation of supporting staff through theirs. Training leaders is often the highest-leverage intervention point for systemic change.

Organizations that book Barbara Rubel through Griefwork Center, Inc. receive a program customized to their professional context – not a templated speaker circuit talk recycled across industries.

Learn More About Barbara

Why Organizational Commitment Matters More Than Individual Coping

One of the most important shifts in compassion fatigue research over the past decade is the recognition that compassion fatigue is an occupational hazard, not a personal failure. It is a predictable consequence of prolonged exposure to the suffering and trauma of others—not a sign that someone lacks resilience or simply needs more self-care.

When organizations treat compassion fatigue as an individual responsibility, they unintentionally place the burden of an organizational risk on the shoulders of the people most affected by it. The result is ongoing emotional depletion, increased turnover, reduced job satisfaction, patient or client care errors, and diminished organizational effectiveness.

Organizations that recognize compassion fatigue as a workplace stress take a different approach. Rather than relying solely on individual coping strategies, they invest in systemic solutions that strengthen both employees and the organization as a whole, including:

Organization-wide training that equips all staff with the knowledge and skills to recognize and respond to compassion fatigue—not just those who self-identify as struggling.
Leadership education that enables supervisors to recognize early warning signs, normalize help-seeking, support healthy workplace practices, and model resilience.
Peer support systems that foster connection, mutual accountability, and

Griefwork Center, Inc. | Compassion Fatigue Speaking, Training & Resilience