Our Safe Haven: Online Support Sessions for Professionals Working with Clients Around the Holidays

As a mental health professional, you face various challenges due to the increased stress and emotional struggles experienced by many clients around the holidays. You often need to provide additional support, coping strategies, and resources to help individuals navigate these times.

Some of the key challenges clients—and many professionals—face include:

• Societal Expectations: There is often societal pressure to act merry and celebratory, which can be challenging for individuals struggling with mental health issues.

• Isolation and Loneliness: Many people may feel lonely or isolated during the holidays, which can exacerbate mental health issues.

• Financial Stress and Gift-Giving: The financial burden and expectations of gift-giving during the holidays can contribute to mental health problems.

• Family Gatherings and Relationship Struggles: Family gatherings and relationship issues can be sources of stress and emotional challenges for individuals, impacting their mental well-being.

• Alcohol Consumption and Substance Abuse: Holiday events often include and focus on alcohol consumption, posing a particularly challenging time for sobriety for people in recovery.

• Worsening of Existing Mental Health Conditions: The holiday season can worsen the conditions of individuals with diagnosed mental illnesses, leading to increased anxiety and depression.

If you are a professional coping with the added stress of the Holiday Season, please know you don’t have to go through this alone.

Join Safer Society for a one-hour support group session led by David Prescott, a well-known professional with decades of clinical experience (who has had his share of stressful Holiday Seasons!). Each Our Safe Haven session will provide attendees with a safe, non-threatening space to create connections with those who also feel the weight of the Holiday season.

In each session, we will explore topics that are meaningful to the participants, such as:

• Helping clients for whom this is the hardest time of the year.
• Dealing with our own stresses while being there for our clients.
• Coping with holidays that are not part of participants’ backgrounds or cultures.
• Encouraging client (and professional) self-care, managing expectations, and promoting healthy coping mechanisms when addressing holiday-related mental health challenges.

To ensure that each session is workable, we will limit the number of attendees. Registration for each session will, therefore, be on a first-come-first-served basis. We are charging a non-refundable fee of $8.00 to reserve your spot. 

Your personal privacy is our highest priority. These sessions will be recorded for liability purposes only. The recordings will not be shared with attendees or distributed outside of Safer Society Foundation.

Like any group discussion, everyone will have a responsibility to keep it a safe, professional, and confidential space. We will adhere to the codes of ethics of our professions, mandatory laws, and other professional standards. The Safe Haven series is intended to be supportive; not formal supervision, consultation, or legal advice.