Skip to content
We are not a service provider. To access support services, please visit our directory. If you are in distress, call or text 9-8-8.

Professions where individuals risk their lives in service of the care, protection, and safety of others are by their nature hazardous, and this has become even truer during the COVID-19 pandemic. Organizations and leadership teams have an obligation to protect their workforce from these hazards, including those that are psychological in nature, such as moral injury.

Encountering moral and ethical challenges can’t be designed out of the work in these high-risk fields. Therefore, preventative and early intervention structures need to be created within organizations and teams to provide proactive universal support to all staff.

Our toolkit provides leaders with an understanding of moral injury in an organizational context, and includes tools, templates, and tips for understanding what preventative and early intervention structures are already in place, and what more might need to be done.

What is moral injury and what does it mean for my organization?

Want to know more about moral injury and concrete actions you can take to address it organizationally and as a leader? This is the place to start. You’ll also find inspiring stories from fellow leaders about what moral injury has meant for them and their organizations.

Playlist

  • Fred Phelps: Supporting from a distance
  • Dr. Karen Cohen: Importance of listening
  • Dr. Karen Cohen: Unique pandemic factors
  • Joanne Bezzubetz: Protecting staff and patients
  • Cameron Love: Rethinking staff wellness

Taking Action to Prevent Moral Injury: Quick Tips for Leaders

Moral Injury – What Is It and What Can Leaders Do about It?

Listen to Learn Understanding the Needs and Stressors of Your Team

Effective Communication During times of Stress and Uncertainty

Showing Gratitude For Your Team

A Conversation Guide Helping Leaders Talk about Moral Injury

Asset-mapping through the lens of moral injury

Already feel like you have a grasp on moral injury and looking for what to do next? Well, you aren’t starting from scratch. Chances are, your organization has structures in place that support overall psychological health and wellness, which also can protect against moral injury. This section contains tools and tips for how to work with your team to map out and communicate those assets. 

Mapping Your Assets Looking Through a New Lens

Identifying Your Assets

Amplifying and enhancing supports

Mapping your assets is a great place to start, but not a place to finish. Critical examination of your asset map can signal initiatives you may want to promote and communicate, but also reveal gaps in the existing supports. In this section, you will find tools and tips to use your asset map to the fullest to identify gaps, prioritize, and action chosen initiatives. 

Planning for implementation

You’ve strategically used your asset map to identify priorities and now you need to make them a reality. Maybe your priority is to effectively communicate your current assets, or maybe it is to implement a team leader moral injury conversation guide. Whatever it is your team has prioritized, this section contains tools and templates for making it happen.

Evaluating, improving and keeping it going

Whether you’ve implemented something new, scaled up something existing, or communicated the beneficial supports you already have in place, it is critical that you evaluate your efforts and plan out how to keep it going. This section contains everything you need to know to assess what went well, what didn’t, and how to improve it and sustain it in the long term.