The Institute will focus on "Practitioner Self-Care" by defining and illustrating the need to attend to one's own self-care practice. He will discuss the importance of mastering one's time and professional practices' impacts on the practitioner. There is a growing acceptance of mental health services and awareness of the requirements of a practitioner who can become depleted. Mental health professionals are absorbing the stress of their clients and the clients sometimes observe the impact of their work on themselves. It is a cumulative impact on practitioners in a climate of growing acceptance of mental health services. Thus, both the client and practitioner seek relief. Each client seeks in the practitioner what is needed for them to solve their own problems.

Yet clients deplete practitioners as a result and today we will focus on this depletion. The session focuses on you, the practitioner, and by the end of the day, each of you will have a good working model of a Self-Care Plan. We will review the research and note the practitioner profession's professional practice (e.g., AAMFT, APA, AMA ) organizations and provide you with some rather practical tools for identifying what, how, and why self-care is needed.

Participants will:
1. Understand the contexts of the mental health care practitioner today.
2. Define, illustrate, and justify practitioner self-care practices in 2024.
3. Identify the pressures of practice and the need for a self-care plan.
4. Review the research supporting the development of a self-care plan.
5. Practice the development of a self-care plan in groups.

Keynote Speaker: Dr. Charles Figley is the Tulane University Paul Henry Kurzweg, MD Distinguished Chair in Disaster Mental Health, Associate Dean for Research, School of Social Work Professor, and Director of the award-winning Traumatology Institute. He is a former professor at Purdue University (1974-1989) and Florida State University (1989-2008), as well as former Fulbright Fellow and Visiting Distinguished Professor at the Kuwait University (2003-2004). Dr. Figley has published more 160 refereed journal articles and 25 books as pioneer trauma scholar and practitioner. He is founding editor of the Journal of Traumatic Stress, the Journal of Family Psychotherapy, and Traumatology, the International Journal. Dr. Figley's research, publications, and dedication to educating future generations of mental health professionals have cemented his legacy as a trailblazer in the study of traumatic stress.