Working from home is weird, huh?
For some folks, working from home means we have some extra time to work on professional development. To that end, I’m going to try to pull together some resources on a variety of topics to help you if you want to really dig in to a topic. Given the conversations I’ve been having with everyone from coworkers to colleagues across the state to family members to neighbors, it seems like a deep dive on self-care might be a good place to start. Some of these might even be worth sharing with your community! This is not an exhaustive list, or I’d never get it out to you, but it is a start!
Archived Webinars
- ALA’s webinar on COVID-19 Managing Stress and Strategies
- Infopeople: Reducing Work Stress with Mindfulness
- Infopeople (through Webjunction): Preventing and Treating Compassion Fatigue with Self-Care
- Wild Wisconsin Winter Web 2020: Take a Break from Your Smart Phone
- Wild Wisconsin Winter Web 2019: Self-Care and Preventing Burnout
Toolkits
The Center for Healthy Minds at the UW-Madison has lots of great resources, but in particular they’ve developed the COVID-19 Well-Being Toolkit and Resources. It includes information about a free meditation app the Center has created, several guided audio meditations, videos (created for kids and teens but very worthwhile for adults, as well), interviews and writings by the Center’s director Richard Davidson, and tools for talking with kids about COVID-19.
The Compassion Resilience Toolkit was developed by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. Compassion fatigue can be a real challenge when working with the public, and this toolkit provides exercises, articles, and discussion prompts to allow you to think about how to be more resilient. I like it because it encourages thought and action that is personal, but also encourages administrators to examine the systems we have set up in our institutions to promote the health and well-being of employees.
TED Talks
- Trauma Stewardship with Laura Van Dernoot Lipsky (author of the book Trauma Stewardship, unfortunately not available on Overdrive…)
- The Power of Vulnerability with Brene Brown (author of many books, many of which are available on Overdrive)