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A raw and authentic podcast for those who work or volunteer in animal care, welfare, or activism, who are struggling with compassion fatigue, burnout, grief and loss, secondary traumatic stress, and other mental health concerns. Through both solo and guest episodes, I blend science, psychology, spirituality, and even a touch of "woo woo" to help you manage compassion fatigue, build resilience, and make your passion for helping animals sustainable. If you're involved in animal caregiving, rescue, trap-neuter return (TNR), sheltering, animal control, cruelty investigations, veterinary medicine, fostering, wildlife or marine rehabilitation and conservation, animal law or lobbying, ethical veganism, or any other role in animal care, welfare, or activism, and struggling with the consequences of caring so much that it hurts, this podcast is for you!
The host, Jen Blough, LPC, is a licensed professional counselor, compassion fatigue coach and speaker, and author with more than 35 years of experience in animal welfare and activism. She is the author of To Save a Starfish: A Compassion Fatigue Workbook for the Animal Welfare Warrior and the upcoming book, Beyond Compassion Fatigue.
Episodes
Friday Jul 11, 2025
Friday Jul 11, 2025
Compassion fatigue doesn't just affect individuals—it can infiltrate entire teams, departments, and organizations. In this episode, I'm joined by the author of The Compassion Fatigued Organization to explore what happens when secondary trauma and chronic stress become embedded in the culture of animal care, welfare, and activism.
We dive into what organizational compassion fatigue really means, how it shows up in workplace systems, and what leaders—as well as staff and volunteers—can do to shift from burnout to resilience.
In this episode, we discuss:
- What organizational compassion fatigue is and how it can show up.
- Why cultivating a culture of compassion goes far beyond encouraging individual self-care.
- What it means to be a trauma-informed organization and how leadership can lead the way.
- How trauma reenactments and stress responses (fight, flight, freeze) ripple through teams and shape workplace culture.
- The current cultural "war on empathy" and how to protect and nurture empathy in your team.
- The evolving role of self-care: why it’s important not just for staff and volunteers, but for the organization as a whole
Whether you’re a team lead, frontline worker, or volunteer, this episode will help you better understand the systemic nature of compassion fatigue and offer concrete tools to begin healing from the inside out.
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