The Psychological PPE Program
Expert Advice. Practical Skills. Optimized Health.
Psychological PPE is a comprehensive, online program that provides evidence-based strategies and tools
to protect your emotional and mental wellbeing during exposure to high-stress, high-pressure situations.
$99 CAD
One Year Access
Created by Experts in the Field of Psychological Health
We know how important it is to protect our physical wellbeing – but what are we doing to protect our psychological wellbeing?
As helping professionals, we are diligent about our use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) when it comes to protecting ourselves and others from harmful exposure.
However, we are not always as conscientious about protecting our emotional and mental health.
What is Psychological PPE?
Psychological PPE is a collection of protective strategies with a multi-disciplinary focus that can be used before, during and after exposure to difficult and stressful events.
For an overview of Psychological PPE, watch the Psychological PPE: Exploring Compassion Fatigue and Burnout during COVID webinar with Dr. Jennifer Russel, Diana Tikasz & Françoise Mathieu.
Video Content
Listen in as the experts discuss the most relevant issues facing helping professionals today
Expert Curated Content
Find the most current and evidence-based resources, books, articles and more
On-Demand Access
Access content as soon as it’s released – on your own time
$99 CAD
One Year Access
What’s Included?
Each month the Psychological PPE program will include:
- Discussion: An expert discussion on a different theme each month
- Skill: A video outlining a new skill each month
- You Asked: A video discussion answering questions we have received from you.
- Resources: Books, articles, podcasts and exercises that we recommend.
- Voices from the Field: Inspiring conversations with helping professionals.
July 2021: Post-Traumatic Growth
This month, we are exploring the concept of post traumatic growth. As we slowly reopen and return to the office or come back from redeployments, it feels like an important time to pause and take stock of the past nearly 500 days of the pandemic.
UNLOCKED JULY 9th, 2021
June 2021: Boundaries – A Deep Dive, Part two
This month, we are doing a deep dive part two on the topic of boundaries. We began exploring this in our January 2021 show which we called “Why are you texting me a picture of your rash? Understanding boundaries and setting limits.”
As many of us in North America face the “next normal” of the pandemic there are many issues on all of our minds: What will the Fall look like in terms of our work realities, what will it be like when people return to work or are done with their special deployments? We know that when things settle a bit, more of us will have a bit more of a chance to process the emotional impact of the past 400 days. So we felt that focusing on work boundaries was an important conversation to have right now.
UNLOCKED JUNE 11, 2021
May 2021: Faking it: Recognizing impostor syndrome
Impostor syndrome is defined as having a fear of being exposed as a fraud no matter how experienced or truly competent we actually are in an area of expertise. This month, we explore this phenomenon in the early parts of our careers, faking it during the pandemic and the risks of covering up our inner fears by going into expert mode.
UNLOCKED MAY 14, 2021
April 2021: Managing Brain Fog During Times of Chronic Stress
As we continue living through a prolonged time of amplified stress & uncertainty, one frequently observed phenomenon has been described as “brain-fog”, a sense of increased fatigue, short term memory loss, and reduced productivity. This month we will explore how your brain functions with chronic stress, how numbing out can contribute to brain fog, & strategies to live in the present, so we can all better understand brain fog and what can be done to reduce it.
UNLOCKED APRIL 9, 2021
March 2021: Long haulers – One year into the pandemic, what is working for your psychological well-being?
As we mark the one year anniversary of the start of the pandemic in North America, we wanted to explore what has been working to help maintain psychological well-being during a team of upheaval and significant stress for almost all of us.
UNLOCKED MARCH 12, 2021
February 2021: It Takes a (Physically Distant) Village – Creating your Professional Community of Support
We are recording this in early February, and I think that we can all agree that it’s been a long eleven months. Many of us have experienced periods of prolonged stress and intense workloads since the start of the pandemic.
Whether you live in parts of Canada where you are currently in almost complete lockdown, or somewhere where things have re-opened, the way that we connect with friends, family and colleagues has changed dramatically. Some of us are continuing to work remotely alone at our kitchen tables while others are in the front lines where concern about infection spread and work volume does not allow us to have the informal catchups and debriefs with colleagues that we used to enjoy.
UNLOCKED FEBRUARY 12, 2021
January 2021: Why are you texting me a picture of your rash? Understanding boundaries and setting limits
Many of us work in the community that we also live in. How do you set boundaries with your neighbours, friends and loved ones while still being kind? What if you don’t want to set boundaries, what’s that about?
We will discuss:
- Boundaries: a multidisciplinary perspective
- How do we manage difficult clinical situations while staying human and grounded? Case examples
- Creating your community of practice: How do you create that space?
UNLOCKED JANUARY 15, 2021
December 2020: Am I allowed to feel run down? Addressing stigma and the stiff upper lip
Times of sustained crisis and stress can have lingering and complex reverberations – even as we settle into the new routines of the pandemic. To further complicate these pressures is a culture that maintains that helping professionals must stoically “carry on” or be perpetual heroes.
Recent research from the University of British Columbia indicates that while the public might be banging pots for some of us at 7pm, they might not want to be hanging out with us! The topics of this month’s discussion are often not openly discussed, leading to a lot of needless suffering, resentment and isolation.
- Addressing internal dilemmas and conflict: “the stories we tell ourselves”
- Learning when to recognize stigma (even within ourselves) and approaches to manage it
- Self-compassion
UNLOCKED DECEMBER 11, 2020
November 2020: How am I doing? Taking stock, pausing and reflecting
Like Physical PPE (Personal Protective Equipment), Psychological PPE is designed to protect us during exposure to high stress situations. This requires us to actively take steps throughout our day to protect our health and wellbeing.
The first step in developing an arsenal of effective tools is taking stock: assessing our exposure to risk, moment by moment, in order to use the most effective strategies to pause and reset.
This month, we will offer tools for taking stock and taking pause including:
• Moment by moment personal risk assessment
• Helpful practices to be utilized in the flow of work
UNLOCKED NOVEMBER 13, 2020
A personal note from Jen:
“As a psychiatrist juggling work in a tertiary care hospital while homeschooling my two primary school children during this pandemic, I quickly realized that I needed to develop tools to keep myself physically and emotionally healthy — I needed to grab my Psychological PPE!
As the pandemic has evolved, and the stress and uncertainty have continued, previous self care strategies have not always been sufficient.
Learning to manage the stress over time, rather than just managing the acute crisis, has been a significant challenge – a challenge which I continue to work with and learn from.”
A personal note from Françoise:
“Recent worldwide events have been extremely challenging for many of us – both professionally and personally. When the pandemic erupted in our communities, it became clear that we all needed simple and effective strategies to stay grounded and maintain our psychological and physical well-being.
In times of stress, I have frequently turned to Diana and Jen as members of my community of practice for their sage advice, guidance and practical strategies. They helped remind me that Psychological PPE is right within our reach – and that we need to make a daily commitment to practice these strategies in order to stay well.”
A personal note from Diana:
“Working in a large hospital as a Resilience Integration Specialist, particularly during the time of COVID, I have supported many individual staff, leaders and teams facing various levels of elevated stress and trauma exposure. I look forward to working alongside Françoise and Jen, two highly skillful and wise practitioners, as we walk you through our lessons learned and tips about what helps during challenging times.
By continuously employing Psychological PPE throughout our workday, we have more time and energy at the end of our shifts. This gives us space to reflect on the fulfilling and rewarding aspects of our work, – throughout the span of our careers. The most generous act we can do is to care for ourselves as we care for others.”
FAQ
The Psychological PPE program is a subscription-based program that is designed to give you tools and strategies to manage stress and protect your wellbeing. New content is created and delivered each month. This program was created by experts in the fields of psychological health Françoise Mathieu, Dr. Jen Russel, and Diana Tikasz with the aim of providing quick and easy micro-skills that all of us can incorporate into our work and personal lives. The program is owned and administered by TEND Academy Ltd.
When you purchase a one-year subscription, you will have access to all of the content on the Psychological PPE learning portal including access to videos, audio files, resources and recommended books, blog posts, podcasts and more. New content will be added on the second Friday of each month related to that month’s theme. Members of the Psychological PPE community will also be able to submit questions for the monthly Q&A and our panel of experts will choose 3 questions to be discussed related to that month’s theme.
You can register for the Psychological PPE Program by clicking here.
The Psychological PPE program can be accessed by clicking here.
We can happily accommodate large group purchases for an organization. Please contact us at info@tendacademy.ca.
Yes! New content will be made available on the second Friday of each month and you can access the material on your own schedule. Content will also be provided in both video and audio formats so you can learn in the way that works best for you.