Self Care and Servant Leadership: How to Survive and Thrive Working with the Homeless

“Every organization serving the homeless and other vulnerable populations faces the challenge of employee burnout or other dysfunction of front line workers,” says Matt Bennett, MBA, MA, chief innovation officer at the Coldspring Center for Health and Innovation in Denver, CO.

“If your organization serves vulnerable populations, like the homeless,” Bennett points out, “there’s a high risk, especially for frontline workers. But if you can create a culture of wellness, then employee health and resilience recovers and employees are better able to perform their duties.”

Bennett is a keynote speaker on “Creating a Culture of Wellness” at Saffron Strand’s 7th Annual Homeless Workforce Conference — “Working with the Homeless: How to Survive & Thrive in the Trenches” — June 13-14, 2016 at the Richmond Memorial Auditorium in Richmond, CA.

Patricia Falotico, CEO of the Robert K. Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership in Atlanta, GA also is a keynote speaker who focuses on “How Frontline Workers Can Become Effective and Inspiring Servant Leaders.”

Servant leaders constantly ask: Are those we serve growing as persons? Are they becoming healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to serve others? Servant leadership puts the service relationship first, not the leadership relationship, which is a new way of working with the homeless. But it is a natural and effective form of leadership for anyone working with vulnerable populations.

“Working with the Homeless” features other national and San Francisco Bay Area authorities to explore strategy, policy, and programming to ensure the wellness and performance of those who work with the homeless and other vulnerable populations. Helping at risk youth is especially traumatic. So the Conference has a special emphasis on supporting those who work with homeless, runaway, and foster care youth, helping them enter or re-enter the workforce.

Workshops both days provide target valuable skills training, including:

• Management Strategies for Reducing Stress and Burnout among Homeless Service Provider Personnel
• Workplace Bullying: What It Is and What To Do About It
• Trauma Informed Excellence — TIE — Leadership

Other workshops explore innovative therapies to help “heal the healers” — art therapy, music therapy, dance therapy, drum therapy, labyrinth therapy, and more.

The 2016 Homeless Workforce Conference is a unique national forum that provides specialized training and continuing education for those working in the fields of employment, health care, and housing services. The Conference helps program managers, civic leaders, and anyone assisting the homeless, hard-to-employ, and long-term unemployed. The overarching goal is to empower the homeless and those at risk of homelessness to re-enter the workforce for the long term.

For more information, click here.

For registration, click here.

Or contact: Saffron Strand, Inc., info@saffronstrand.org, tel. 510. 778.9492