Carolyn V. Coarsey PhD.

Learn How to Support Your Friends, Family and Neighbors!

FAERF is proud to offer Mental Health First Aid Certification from the National Council for Mental Wellbeing.
Mental Health First Aid is a skills-based training course that teaches participants about mental health and substance-use issues.

After the course you will be able to:
*Recognize common signs and symptoms of mental health challenges.
*Recognize common signs and symptoms of substance use challenges.
*Understand how to interact with a person in crisis.
*Know how to connect a person with help.
*Use self-care tools and techniques.

This course is interactive and comprehensible and is available online or in-person.
Contact us to find out how to join the 3 million people trained in Mental Health First Aid nationwide! Reach out to Cheri Johnson for more information!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AERtbpv92I0

Not in the United States? Here is some international information:
https://mhfainternational.org/

Work: A Deep History, from the Stone Age to the Age of Robots

Since so many of us spend much of our lives at work, it is great to find a book by that title which helps us understand the influence that "work" has had on our lives since the beginning of time.

Author James Suzman expresses it this way:
Work defines who we are. It determines our status, and dictates how, where, and with whom we spend most of our time. It mediates our self-worth and molds our values. But are we hard-wired to work as hard as we do? Did our Stone Age ancestors also live to work and work to live? And what might a world where work plays a far less important role look like?

To understand more about our drive to keep working, even when our financial needs are met, we highly recommend Work as a fascinating, educational and yes, fun read!
https://a.co/d/5fB60YE

The Worst Is Over: What to Say When Every Moment Counts is a book that is changing the way all of us—from first responders and health care workers to neighbors and family members—are speaking to each other in times of medical emergencies, trauma, and crisis. This in-depth guide to the protocol of Verbal First Aid™ is a revolutionary method of using the power of words to promote healing in emergency situations.

Short Synopsis: In this book, both authors provide extensive examples of how just the right words, spoken with the right tone, at just the right time in a crisis can physiologically and emotionally alter the outcome of serious situations. Words can ease the dark night of the soul, both in the present and in the future. When we use Verbal First Aid™ in a trauma, we are changing the way it (the trauma) is processed and mitigating its impact down the line. Reading this book can empower any helper to comfort those who are ill or injured in both professional and personal situations.

You can find the book here:
https://a.co/d/3aMV4Bx

Today marks the twenty-seventh anniversary of the crash of ValuJet Flight 592 where all 110 people on board died. The flight crashed into the Miami Everglades nearly 10 mins after takeoff due to hazardous cargo in the cargo compartment.

Only 68 of the 110 souls on board were identified, due to the crash conditions and environmental contamination. Many family members joined with survivors of earlier crashes to push for legislation for improvements in post-accident responses, which led to the Aviation Disaster Family Assistance Act of 1996.

The Family Assistance Education & Research Foundation (FAERF) is grateful to the ValuJet families who shared their stories to help train employees for future accident responses.

To view these and other families whose stories helped drive major improvements in humanitarian assistance response in the workplace view Integrating the Losses video (https://lnkd.in/ersTCTHt) and other videos made available by the FAERF Institute.



(Pictures include ValuJet Crash Memorial, Miami Everglades)

With the COVID-19 pandemic, mental health professionals are seeing a significant rise in people suffering from anxiety and full-blown anxiety disorders.

Don't Feed the Monkey Mind is recommended by therapists as a practical book that is easy for anyone to understand and apply to everyday life.

Ancient sages compared the human mind to a monkey: constantly chattering, hopping from branch to branch—endlessly moving from fear to safety. If you are one of the millions of people whose life is affected by anxiety, you are familiar with this process. Unfortunately, you can’t switch off the “monkey mind,” but you can stop feeding the monkey—or stop rewarding it by avoiding the things you fear.

Written by psychotherapist Jennifer Shannon, this book shows you how to stop anxious thoughts from taking over using proven-effective cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), and mindfulness techniques, as well as fun illustrations. By following the exercises in this book, you’ll learn to identify your own anxious thoughts, question those thoughts, and uncover the core fears at play.

Once you stop feeding the monkey, there are no limits to how expansive your life can feel. This book will show you how anxiety can only continue as long as you try to avoid it. And, paradoxically, only by seeking out and confronting the things that make you anxious can you reverse the cycle that keeps your fears alive.

The audiobook is also available.
https://a.co/d/3LEe7SZ

Compassion increases our sense of connection to others.
Numerous studies show that social connectedness improves health and increases longevity.

Employee responders featured in the Family Assistance Education & Research Foundation International-Humanitarian Assistance Response Programs (I-HARP)™ course will provide numerous examples where their compassionate response to strangers has contributed to their lives.
Their testimony is an example of research that shows that giving to others increase our well being above and beyond what we experienced when we spend our money on ourselves.

Read more in last month's Consciousness@work article:
https://lnkd.in/ePzfeycf

This Month's book is Habits of a Happy Brain by Loretta Graziano Breuning, Ph.D.

This book is great for helping responders stay mentally healthy during emotionally challenging situations such as helping survivors during a crisis.
Dr. Breuning talks about how our neurochemistry evolves. She teaches about the happy chemicals of our brain and what can help us maintain happiness but also what can cause unhappiness. The book is filled with humorous and compelling examples of similarities between mammals and humans. She gives good advice on how to develop an action plan so that we can literally manage our happy hormones in order to have more consistent happiness in our lives.

Book available here:
https://a.co/d/dAD9Z2a

Consciousness@Work 26 - March 2023, Compassion is Good for All - FAERF consciousness@work 26 – March 2023 Join List Share 0 0 0 0   0 0 /250 Post Express your Like on Facebook Share this on Facebook Tell this to your Friends Say this on Twitter Tweet Share this on LinkedIn Pin this on Pinterest Share this on Google Plus Post your comments 0 /250 Post […]