Rogers hosts virtual leadership gathering for women in the mental health field
06/26/20 11:36:am
Prior to the pandemic, Annie Jaworska and Blair Famarin, outreach leads, and Stephanie Eken, MD, regional medical director, were planning to hold their own women’s leadership gatherings. When an in-person event was no longer possible, they decided to bring them together for one virtual event with attendees from the Chicago and Nashville areas. On Tuesday, May 26 they hosted their women’s leadership lunch and learn.
“We wanted to bring together female leaders in the behavioral health field so we can learn and support each other,” Annie says. “I’m really big about women’s leadership and for a while now I’ve wanted to provide an opportunity to empower women in our field.”
In total, 11 female mental health leaders from the two cities attended the event. Joining them was Sue McKenzie, vice president, Healthy Culture, and co-director of Rogers InHealth, who led a discussion on compassion resilience, focusing on compassion fatigue, setting healthy boundaries, and steps to take toward compassionate action.
“Providing the time and some content structure for these amazing women leaders to talk about their own well-being brought about vulnerability, idea sharing and authentic connection,” Sue says. “It reminded me that to simply tell people to care for themselves is not enough. We need to create opportunities for people to come together to re-discover that they are worth it.”
Feedback from the event was highly positive, according to Annie, with one of the attendees saying “Thank you so much for a wonderful meeting and discussion – looking forward to the next one!”
The next Women’s Leadership Group will be held on August 25 and Maeve O’Neill, chief regulatory officer, will serve as the presenter, where she will discuss rumbling and vulnerability. The group is being offered to all regional locations at Rogers, and Annie says that they will also be hosting female leaders from the Philadelphia, Miami, and San Diego areas.
