Join us on Wednesday, October 14th, as the AVA Webinar Series presents Sustaining Ourselves in the Work: Well-Being, Yoga, and Mindfulness in Violence and Adversity Research and Practice, featuring Dr. Sarah Yercich, Dr. Jennifer Collins, and Katelyn Shaw.
Wednesday, October 14, 2026
12 – 1:30pm MST
Work on violence and adversity asks a great deal of the people who do it. Whether supporting survivors directly, conducting interviews, analyzing case files, or encountering this material for the first time in a classroom or practicum, sustained engagement with difficult content can contribute to vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue, and burnout. Yet research, training, coursework, and workplace rarely address well-being, and those earliest in their careers often have the fewest supports.
This webinar invites researchers, trainees, students, and frontline and service workers to consider well-being as an essential part of ethical and sustainable practice. The session will explore the emotional and physical impacts of working with sensitive subject matter across research, learning, and service settings, and introduce evidence-informed strategies to recognize and respond to stress. Participants will be guided through accessible yoga, mindfulness, and meditation practices they can do at a desk, between classes or client meetings, or after a demanding shift or day of fieldwork.
About the Speakers
Dr. Sarah Yercich (she/her) is an interdisciplinary researcher and activist whose work focuses on violence against women, children and youth, and gender-diverse communities, as well as prison education and the scholarship of teaching and learning. Sarah is the Co-Director of the FREDA Centre for Research on Violence Against Women and Children, a Lecturer (Limited Term) in the School of Criminology at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia, and an Instructor in the Criminology Department at Capilano University in North Vancouver, British Columbia. She is also the Editor of the Western Criminologist and a member of the Leadership Team of the Alliance Against Violence and Adversity (AVA), where she leads the Webinar Series and is an Early Career Researcher.
Dr. Jennifer Collins, PhD, RN (BScN), CCNE, joined AVA in 2025 as an Early Career Researcher and is an Assistant Professor with Memorial University’s Faculty of Nursing. She has a background in arts-based research, teaching; learning and interventions; neurodegenerative disorders (i.e. multiple sclerosis and dementia) including gendered research for women with multiple sclerosis experiencing disability and episodic disability; gerontological health; nursing education; mixed methods in nursing research; phenomenology and critical phenomenology..
Katelyn Shaw is a fourth-year psychology student at Athabasca University and a certified yoga instructor. She has a strong interest in mindfulness and holistic approaches to well-being. Academically and professionally, her interests include mental health and trauma-informed care, and she has recently gained research experience through her work with the Alliance Against Violence and Adversity and other psychology research projects.