Healthcare Education, Speaking & Professional Consultation
Education, workshops, and consultation:
Burnout, moral distress, MAiD, grief, psychological safety, and meaning in healthcare and helping professions.
Registered Psychotherapist | Certified Supervisor-Educator | Certified Spiritual Health Practitioner
Helping Healthcare Professionals Sustain Meaningful Work Without Losing Themselves
Healthcare professionals enter their work because they care.
Yet many find themselves carrying the cost of responsibilities that exceed their role, struggling with moral distress, compassion fatigue, burnout, and questions about meaning, identity, and purpose.
My work helps organizations and helping professionals better understand the human experience of caring for others through education, reflection, and practical frameworks that support sustainable careers and psychologically healthy teams.
Selected Presentations & Teaching
Office of the Chief Coroner of Ontario
Saskatoon Theological Union
Emmanuel Health, Good Samaritan Society
Signature Topics
Burnout, Identity, and Sustainable Helping Careers
Burnout is more than exhaustion. It can affect identity, relationships, decision-making, meaning, and a person’s ability to continue doing work they once loved. Drawing on my Cost of Care framework, I help professionals and organizations understand the personal and systemic factors that contribute to burnout and compassion fatigue and explore practical pathways toward recovery and sustainability.
What Is Mine to Carry? Understanding Moral Distress, Responsibility, and Professional Wellbeing
Professionals often encounter situations in which competing values, limited resources, organizational pressures, or ethical concerns create significant emotional strain. These experiences can leave lasting impacts on well-being, trust, and professional identity. Educational sessions explore the causes and consequences of moral distress and moral injury, while offering opportunities for reflection, discussion, and resilience-building.
Supporting Patients, Families, and Teams Through MAiD
MAiD raises complex psychological, spiritual, relational, and ethical questions for patients, families, practitioners, and organizations. Presentations and consultations may address family dynamics, anticipatory grief, provider experiences, psychological safety, spiritual concerns, ethical tensions, and approaches to supporting those involved in the MAiD process.
Creating Psychologically Sustainable Teams: Beyond Self-Care and Resilience
Teams perform best when members feel safe to ask questions, raise concerns, reflect honestly, and engage in difficult conversations. Workshops explore the foundations of psychological safety and its role in team functioning, leadership, learning, resilience, and quality care.
Loss, Meaning, and the Hidden Grief of Helping Professionst
Grief is a natural response to loss, yet many professionals and organizations struggle to create space for it. Educational sessions explore anticipatory grief, cumulative loss, professional grief, bereavement, and ways individuals and teams can support one another through significant transitions and losses.
Why People Stay: Meaning, Identity, and the Human Side of Caring Work
Many helping professionals are sustained by a deep sense of purpose, vocation, or calling. At the same time, exposure to suffering, loss, and ethical complexity can challenge that sense of meaning. Through reflection and discussion, participants are invited to reconnect with their values, explore questions of purpose, and strengthen their capacity to engage in difficult work with integrity and hope.
What people are saying
The MAiD Review Team also highlighted the value of discussions related to Ring Theory, boundaries, support systems, role clarity, and maintaining purpose in emotionally complex work.
These presentations reflects the type of education and consultation I provide for healthcare organizations, professional associations, leadership teams, spiritual care departments, and helping professionals seeking thoughtful engagement with difficult topics. Sessions can be tailored to the needs of individual organizations and delivered virtually or in person.
Ways We Can Work Together
Organizations have different learning needs, from conference presentations to facilitated team conversations. Sessions can be customized to your audience, goals, and organizational context.
Keynote Presentations
Engaging presentations that introduce new ideas, challenge assumptions, and encourage meaningful reflection on topics such as burnout, moral distress, psychological safety, MAiD, grief, ethics, and spiritual care.
Workshops & Professional Development
Interactive learning experiences that combine practical tools, case studies, discussion, and reflection. Workshops can be delivered as stand-alone sessions or as part of larger educational initiatives.
Consultation
Consultation services for healthcare organizations, spiritual care departments, leadership teams, educational institutions, and helping professionals seeking support with complex situations, team dynamics, burnout, moral distress, ethics, or program development.
Erika’s Bio
Credentials & Professional Affiliations
Registered Psychotherapist (CRPO)
Certified Supervisor-Educator (CASC/ACSS)
Certified Spiritual Health Practitioner (CASC/ACSS)
Ordained Minister
Erika Mills is a Registered Psychotherapist, Certified Spiritual Health Practitioner, Certified Supervisor-Educator, and Ordained Minister with experience supporting individuals, families, healthcare professionals, chaplains, and organizations navigating complex human experiences.
Her work focuses on burnout, moral distress, moral injury, grief, spirituality, ethical decision-making, professional identity, and the psychological impact of caring professions. Drawing on experience in psychotherapy, spiritual care, healthcare, education, and professional formation, Erika creates engaging learning environments where participants can explore difficult topics with honesty, curiosity, and practical insight.
In addition to her clinical practice, Erika has taught healthcare ethics and theology at the certificate level, facilitated professional development for chaplains and helping professionals, and provided education on the psychological, spiritual, relational, and ethical dimensions of Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) for the MAiD Review Team of the Office of the Chief Coroner of Ontario.
Erika is passionate about helping individuals and organizations sustain meaningful work, foster psychological safety, navigate ethical complexity, and remain connected to purpose in the midst of challenging circumstances
Frequently Asked Questions About Healthcare Speaking,
Workshops & Consultation
What topics can Erika Mills speak on?
Erika provides education, workshops, and consultation on burnout, compassion fatigue, moral distress, moral injury, healthcare worker wellbeing, professional identity, psychological safety, grief, MAiD, meaning-making, and sustaining personhood in helping professions. Presentations are grounded in psychotherapy, spiritual care, ethics, and healthcare education.
Who are your presentations designed for?
Presentations are developed for healthcare professionals, clinical leaders, educators, chaplains, spiritual care practitioners, students, community organizations, and interdisciplinary teams. Sessions can be tailored for frontline staff, leadership groups, conferences, retreats, and professional development events.
Are presentations available virtually or in person?
Yes. Workshops, keynote presentations, guest lectures, educational series, and consultations can be delivered virtually or in person, depending on the location and needs of the organization.
Can presentations be customized for our organization?
Yes. Educational sessions are tailored to the needs of each organization and can address topics such as burnout, workforce wellbeing, moral distress, psychological safety, team culture, professional identity, ethical complexity, and sustaining meaningful work.
What makes your approach different?
Many discussions about burnout focus on stress management alone. Erika’s work explores the deeper relationship between identity, responsibility, meaning, values, and the realities of caring for others. Her approach combines psychological, spiritual, ethical, and organizational perspectives to help individuals and teams engage in difficult work more sustainably.
Do you provide consultation in addition to speaking engagements?
Yes. Consultation is available for healthcare organizations, leadership teams, spiritual care departments, educational programs, and helping professionals seeking support with staff wellbeing, moral distress, reflective practice, psychological safety, peer support initiatives, and professional development.
Have you presented on Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD)?
Yes. Erika has presented on the psychological, spiritual, relational, and ethical dimensions of Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD), including invited presentations for the MAiD Review Team of the Office of the Chief Coroner of Ontario and Saskatoon Theological Union. Sessions can be adapted for healthcare professionals, educators, faith communities, leadership teams, and interdisciplinary audiences.
Do you offer education on burnout and compassion fatigue for healthcare teams?
Yes. Sessions explore the personal and systemic factors that contribute to burnout, compassion fatigue, and moral distress, while providing frameworks that support sustainable caregiving, healthy boundaries, and professional well-being.
What is moral injury in healthcare?
Moral injury occurs when healthcare professionals feel unable to act in accordance with their values because of systemic constraints, ethical conflicts, limited resources, or repeated exposure to situations that challenge their sense of what is right. Educational sessions explore how moral injury affects wellbeing, professional identity, team functioning, and long-term sustainability in helping professions.
How far in advance should we book?
Booking timelines vary depending on the scope of the engagement and the time of year. Early inquiries are encouraged, particularly for conferences, educational programs, and organizational training events.
How do we inquire about speaking or consultation services?
Organizations can reach out through the contact form to discuss their goals, audience, format, and timeline. A conversation can help determine whether a presentation, workshop, consultation, or ongoing educational partnership is the best fit.
Request Information
Whether you are planning a conference, professional development event, staff retreat, workshop, consultation, or educational series, I would be pleased to discuss your needs.
Contact me to discuss availability, learning objectives, and customized programming for your organization.
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