How to Support People Through Burnout, Secondary Trauma, and Moral Injury

Give your team shared language for three patterns of strain and practical tools for recognizing and responding to them.

About This Training

In high-stakes, human-centered work, strain is common. It is also often misunderstood or treated as a sign of personal weakness.

This training gives staff shared language for three distinct patterns of strain that frequently show up in caring professions: burnout, secondary trauma, and moral injury.

Participants will learn how to recognize each pattern, understand the conditions that contribute to it, and identify practical ways to respond. They will explore where they have influence within themselves, their teams, their organizations, and their work with the people they support.

Rather than placing responsibility solely on the individual, this training examines how workplace systems, team practices, and working conditions shape strain. Participants leave with realistic, doable actions they can use in their day-to-day work.

What You’ll Learn

• How to distinguish burnout, secondary trauma, and moral injury, and why those differences matter
• How to recognize early signs of strain in yourself, your colleagues, and the people you support
• Which workplace conditions contribute to strain and which conditions support sustainability
• Where you have meaningful influence, even without positional authority
• How to move from awareness to action using a simple “When I notice X, I can do Y” practice

Practical Takeaways

• Shared language for naming strain without blame
• A companion workbook and practical toolkit
• Small, doable responses participants can use to support themselves, their teams, and the people they serve
• A clearer understanding of where individual action can help and where broader team or systems changes may be needed

Designed for: Staff and teams working in high-stakes, human-centered environments, including public health, human services, child welfare, healthcare, education, and mission-driven nonprofit organizations.