Compassionate Care for All Families

Three Key Motivators for Training Your Perinatal Team

Patient - It's the right thing to do. Improve health outcomes, patient satisfaction and Press Ganey scores.

Personal - Mitigate compassion fatigue, burnout and secondary trauma. Improve job satisfaction, self awareness and personal growth.

Payor/Funder - Comply with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and private payor guidelines and requirements for training staff in “Respectful, Equitable and Supportive Care” in congruence with implementation of the Alliance for Innovation in Maternal Health (AIM) Safety Bundles.

Specialized Training and Education Topics Include:

    • Respectful, equitable and supportive care (a part of the Alliance for Innovation on Maternal Health (AIM) Safety Bundles)

    • Adverse Childhood Events

    • Implementation of AIM Safety Bundles

    • SAMHSA’s Guidance on TIC

    • Compassionate Communication

    • Person Centered Language

    • Historical perspective of midwifery and obstetrics including obstetric mistreatment and abuse

    • Birth trauma prevention and recovery

    • Compassion fatigue and secondary trauma

    • Self-reflective practice

    • Mindfulness for health care professionals

    • Historical perspective on birth trauma in the US

    • Historical perspective on obstetrics and midwifery in the US including obstetric mistreatment and abuse

    • Incidence and risks for birth trauma

    • Birth trauma prevention

    • Birth trauma recovery

    • Implementation of AIM Safety Bundle - Care for Pregnant and Parenting People with Substance Use Disorder

    • Trauma-informed and trauma-responsive care

    • Co-located care for pregnant and parenting people with SUD

    • Care for infants affected by NAS/NOWS

    • Eat Sleep Console Model of Care

    • Lactation with Medication Assisted Therapy/Treatment

    • Prenatal Preparation

    • Postpartum Support

    • Trauma-informed childbirth and parenting education

    • Standardized screening tools

    • Harm reduction

    • Strength-based and solution-focused communication

    • Mindfulness practices and tools for patients with SUD

    • Harm reduction safe sleep education

    • Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) staff training guidance

    • Alliance for Innovation on Maternal Health - Providing respectful, equitable and supportive care staff training

    • US Maternal Morbidity and Mortality data and national and regional initiatives for quality improvement

    • Systemic Racism

    • Implicit Bias

    • LGBTQIA+ Sensitive Care

    • Standardized screening tools

    • Social determinants of health

“Farrah’s approach to education is transformative. Learners come away with a new lens to care for patients in a trauma-informed and trauma-responsive manner that benefits patients, families, providers and staff.”
— Dr. Bonny Whalen, Children's Hospital at Dartmouth Health (CHaD)

“And time for reflection with colleagues is for me a lifesaver; it is not just a nice thing to do if you have time. It is the only way you can survive” ~ Margaret J. Wheatley

If you can’t be compassionate, can you be curious? - How asking one question can transform your work and your life.

While training nurses and doctors in the Eat, Sleep, Console model of care for substance exposed newborns, one nurse reflected that she sometimes found it hard to be compassionate toward mothers who use heroin when pregnant. She was honest, and real and also struggling. She was conflicted between the care she wanted to provide and her own beliefs about what good mothers do and don’t do. This is moral distress that leads to compassion fatigue. We all come to this work with personal experiences, beliefs, a moral compass and a lifetime of conditioning which affects (often subconsciously) how we approach our interaction with patients and families.

Sometimes, it’s hard to be compassionate. To be understanding, flexible, and even loving toward the people we are caring for, and care about.

So I asked her, if you can’t (yet) be compassionate, can you be curious?

She imagined herself being curious. What that would look like and sound like in an interaction. And, how it would be received by a mother.

Through tears, the nurse began to see herself as being compassionate through her curiosity. She saw herself asking questions, taking time, and being tender in her words. She noticed her body soften, her breath expand and her mind quiet.

Not only did she begin to experience compassion for the mother she was thinking of, and for all mothers who are suffering, in pain and afraid; she noticed she had awareness about where inside of herself compassion was also needed.

My extensive clinical experience in caring for families across health care settings including home, community and hospital, gives me a broad perspective of what families and professionals need for education and support.

Contact me to host a dynamic in person or virtual training in your setting