Supporting healthcare practitioner well-being & preventing burnout
In honor of Health Workforce Well-Being Day, this webinar is offered at no cost to AOTA members and nonmembers.
Upon registration you will receive the Zoom link and a calendar invite. Registration is limited and this session will be recorded.
Trauma-responsive care for the caregiver: Supporting healthcare practitioner well-being & preventing burnout
Healthcare professionals routinely care for individuals who have experienced trauma yet rarely receive training on how this exposure affects their own nervous systems. Over time, repeated stress, secondary trauma, moral injury, and systemic pressures accumulate, leading to dysregulation, emotional exhaustion, and professional burnout.
Speaker: Varleisha D. Lyons, PhD, OTD, OTR/L, FAOTA, FNAP
Vice President, DEIJAB Integration & Ethics
Beyond burnout: Focusing on the health of the healthcare workforce
This session explores the neurobiological and occupational impacts of trauma exposure on healthcare practitioners and introduces trauma-responsive strategies that support well-being, professional longevity, and ethical clinical practice. Participants will examine how stress alters cognition, sensory processing, and decision-making, and will learn practical, evidence-informed techniques to regulate their nervous systems in high-demand environments. Rather than framing burnout as an individual failure, this session positions practitioner distress as a predictable outcome of working within trauma-laden systems — and provides tools to intervene early.
Building trauma-responsive well-being
Session Speaker
Dr. Varleisha D. Lyons is a nationally recognized occupational therapist and expert in trauma-responsive care, self-regulation, and practitioner well-being. Her work bridges neuroscience, occupational performance, and systems-level change to support educators, clinicians, and organizations in sustaining ethical, effective practice in high-stress environments. Dr. Lyons has authored multiple books and scholarly works on trauma-informed intervention and professional resilience and is widely sought after for her engaging, evidence-informed training on burnout prevention and workforce sustainability.
Health Workforce Well-Being (HWWB) Day
March 18 is the national Health Workforce Well-Being (HWWB) Day. The National Academy of Medicine (NAM) recognizes HWWB Day as an annual event to bring awareness to an improved health workforce well-being and patient care outcomes. AOTA is recognized as a Change Maker with the National Academy of Medicine.
The Health HWWB Day aims to recognize the importance of protecting health workers’ well-being to sustain our health system and ensure quality patient care. HWWB Day is also a day for action—learning from one another on the progress to advance the movement to support health worker well-being and expand evidence-informed solutions to make system-wide changes to improve health worker well-being and transform cultures.
BOLD Conversations
This event is the first session in a three-part series on clinician well-being and is part of the new Belonging, Opportunities, Leadership Development (BOLD) initiative—AOTA’s integrated framework designed to expand and sustain equitable access, inclusive leadership, and professional visibility within occupational therapy.