Resilient and Sustainable Caring - by Karen Schuder (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Resilient and Sustainable Caring - Your Guide to Thrive While Helping Others

Resilient, sustainable caring requires intentionality. This book provides guidance and practical strategies to thrive while helping others. Grounded in values and purpose, we promote our best, balanced selves. As we make the path of helping others wide enough to include self-care, we see more beauty along the way and recover more quickly from challenges. We also decrease anxiety and increase supportive community. All of this means we journey longer and feel happier in our personal and professional helping roles.

Caregiver resilience and sustainability is not a solo adventure. We influence and are influenced by the people whose journeys intersect with our own. Helping work often involves families and teams, so the book offers ways to increase group resilience and sustainability. Resilient and Sustainable Caring is grounded in research, social theories, and decades of experience to provide sound, practical guidance.

Resilient and Sustainable Caring represents more than thirty years of learning and experience on how to navigate the demanding journey of helping others. Karen's doctoral research on ethics and professional development neatly align with literature on countering burnout and compassion fatigue. Her work and training in countering compassion fatigue, conflict mediation, grief, leadership development, organizational culture, and cultural differences provide a solid foundation for her program.

Take this journey to promote your best, balanced self and help others do so too. Honest conversations about challenges and strategies are a great way to develop a supportive community with other helpers. Go through the book with colleagues or friends using the discussion questions at the end of each chapter.

Review Quotes

"Karen's timely work goes beyond the resiliency support we see in health- care today. This is a practical guide for truly sustainable self-care translating to the care of others. Health systems would do well to implement such a program. We all stand to learn what is at the core of our doubts and discomfort. Digesting and internalizing this book, especially in the company of others, is truly the beginning of mastering joy in our work." - Lisa Prusak, MD

"This deeply reflective book has the potential to benefit so many. What comes to mind, based on my experience in Africa and the Americas, are the front-line workers responding to humanitarian emergencies in their home countries: heroes who often need to process their own loss and grief and help their families through disaster while selflessly providing life-saving assistance to others." - Judith Anne Thimke, Former UN World Food Programme Manager and Country Director

"This book is a powerful tool. If you read it and put it into practice, you will surely live with a better quality of life as an individual, as part of a family and a community. Karen provides a wisdom that helps people live more vibrantly." - Miriam Sierra, World Vision Honduras

"Dr. Schuder's work helped me shift my focus from making decisions based on approval to a purpose-driven outlook. This freed me to make a major career and life change that dramatically improved my resilience and ability to serve others while caring for my needs. Karen made me feel supported and valued at a time when I was experiencing burnout and exhaustion. She helped me see the value I bring to others because of the person I am, not just because of my role." - Julie Knuths, DNP, RN, PHN, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Undergraduate Nursing, College of St. Scholastica