COVID-19 Resource Page

This page serves as a repository of resources for all those touched by the current pandemic, personally or professionally. These resources are aimed at helping people take care of themselves physically and emotionally. This page will be updated regularly, and we appreciate any contributions. Ideas for resources can be submitted directly to Philip Fizur.

General Resources for the Public

NAMI COVID-19 Resource and Information Guide – The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) is the nation’s largest grassroots mental health organization dedicated to building better lives for the millions of Americans affected by mental illness. This guide offers resources for a variety of very specific populations navigating COVID-19, including those with existing mental health diagnoses, those who smoke and use other substances, those who are isolated/detained/have detained family, and the elderly.

Coronavirus Anxiety (COVID-19): How to Stop Worrying about Your Health – Dr. Ali Mattu reviews how to stop worrying about your health and stay healthy at the same time. Topics include how health anxiety works, how anxiety keeps us safe during a public health scare as well as practical tips for how to manage anxiety.

Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19): Advice for the Public – Stay aware of the latest information on the COVID-19 outbreak, available on the WHO website and through your national and local public health authority. Most people who become infected experience mild illness and recover, but it can be more severe for others.

Minimizing Emotional Eating in the Time of the Pandemic – The COVID-19 pandemic has left most Americans reeling, struggling with anxiety, sadness, fear and apprehensive anticipation of the coming days. One of the coping skills that many people lean on is indulging in comfort food and sweet snacks to self-medicate for fear and worry. This page provides some tools that everyone can use to mitigate emotional eating.

Surviving and Learning to Thrive in the Age of the Pandemic – It is certainly easy to succumb to the mental and emotional drain of anxiety and anguish for all of us right now, and for those on the front lines, the toll of daily trauma, weighs especially heavily. However, there are several tools that we can use to stay present and resilient, surviving and even thriving during this challenging time.

Managing Stress Associated with the COVID-19 Virus Outbreak – The COVID-19 outbreak has the potential to increase stress and anxiety, both because of the fear of catching the virus and also because of uncertainty about how the outbreak will affect us socially and economically. The National Center for PTSD provides practical steps you can take to improve your wellbeing.

APA Primer: Keeping Your Distance to Stay Safe – With the number of COVID-19 cases increasing every day, psychologists from the APA offer insights on how to separate yourself from others, while still getting the social support you need.

Taking Care of Your Behavioral Health: Tips for Social Distancing, Quarantine, and Isolation During an Infectious Disease Outbreak – Published by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), a comprehensive guide in Spanish to managing your mental health in the context of social distancing, quarantine, and isolation.

Free Virtual Recovery Meetings during the COVID-19 Pandemic – During this pandemic, many in-person recovery meetings have been canceled or been made difficult to attend due to current safety measures. This resource offers online recovery support groups. All recovery meetings are non-denominational, agnostic to any specific recovery pathway, and are open to anyone. Recovery meetings are available seven times daily. Additional meetings include: one daily family and loved one recovery support meeting; a twice weekly LGBTQ+ all recovery meeting; a twice weekly Womxn’s Only all recovery meeting; a weekly Harm Reduction Works meeting; and a weekly pregnant and postpartum mothers all recovery meeting. 


Resources for Professionals

General

For Cooper Employees – Cooper has made available information regarding child care and elder care resources as well as information on the current temporary PTO policy. The first point of contact should be your direct manager, however If you need to talk to someone other than your manager you can reach out to your HR business partner.

On transitioning to working from home – For many people, transitioning from an office to home is filled with trepidation and fear.  Pre-Coronavirus routine started with our morning process: getting up, exercising, and ready for work, leaving, driving to work, parking, seeing familiar people on the street, getting a beverage of your choice, going to a workplace, and interacting with coworkers. This routine is now changed to getting up, having a process of undefined readiness and working with a laptop from a home office, a dining room table, or a living room.

COVID-19 and Anxiety: Actionable Tools for the Care Team Discussion with Martin Hsia, Psy.D. – A a clear-minded, clinical analysis of the mental health aspects of the 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic meant to assist physicians, healthcare professionals and patients alike by addressing a wide range of subjects, including how clinicians can help patients deal with their mental health during a pandemic, monitor and support their own mental health, ease elevated stress levels of patients suffering from anxiety and OCD and help minimize disturbing, disruptive thoughts related to COVID-19.

A Guide to Understanding and Coping with Compassion Fatigue – Actively paying attention to what’s going on at home and abroad can help ensure you are an informed citizen who is well positioned to lend a helping hand when needed. But with a constant flow of news stories about natural disasters, the opioid epidemic, mass shootings, hate crimes and international conflict, staying informed and engaged can be overwhelming, especially for those who work or volunteer to provide relief to affected communities. People working in helping fields like social work, including individuals interested in becoming a social worker, must be mindful of their own needs in order to prevent burnout and compassion fatigue.

COVID-Ready Communication Skills – From University of Washington, a guide for health care professionals everywhere. From their website “practical advice on how to talk about some difficult topics related to COVID-19. Building on our experience studying and teaching communication for 2 decades, we’ve drawn on our networks to crowdsource the challenges and match them with advice from some of the best clinicians we know. If you know our work, you’ll recognize some familiar themes and also find new material. It’s incomplete and imperfect. But it’s a start.”

Integrative Approaches to COVID-19 – Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona has webpage to update physicians regularly about integrative perspectives on the coronavirus. This is intended to augment (not replace) public health measures of handwashing, physical distancing, and seeking testing/medical care should you become sick.

Resources for Seniors, Their Families, and Their Providers – From GeroCentral, a complete list of resources for working with seniors and their networks throughout the COVID crisis.

Prayer in the Time of COVID – A non-denominational prayer from Chaplain John Ehman at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

A Blessing for Staff in the Time of COVID – A non-denominational blessing for staff from Chaplain John Ehman at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

Psychological Effects of Quarantine During the Coronavirus Outbreak: What Healthcare Providers Need to Know – From the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress, a review of the psychological effects of quarantine, as well as strategies for how healthcare providers can care for their patients’ and their own mental well-being during periods of quarantine.

Leadership in Times of Crisis – Performance in times of stress or threatening events can be a defining moment in the life of a physician leader. Regardless of how well a leader may have done in the day-to-day guidance of a clinic or a cause or a team, the action and reaction during a time of crisis has substantially more perceptual impact among teams, customers and patients. This article from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Leadership Rounds offers a few tips to help focus crisis leadership.

Confidentially Speaking: Staying Calm &Reducing Fear During the Pandemic – From the Cooper Employee Assistance Program, 9 tips on how to manage stress during the current pandemic.

How to Create an APA Style Reference for a Canceled Conference Presentation – To help slow the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19), officials have canceled many public events, including conferences and conventions. This has raised a question for researchers who were planning to present. APA has you covered on how to cite this in your CV and elsewhere!

Speaking of Psychology: Coronavirus Anxiety – A podcast from the American Psychological Association that explores the connections between psychological science and everyday life, this week discussing the fear about the coronavirus that has gripped the world.

Technical Note: Protection of Children during the Coronavirus Pandemic – Infectious diseases like COVID-19 can disrupt the environments in which children grow and develop. Disruptions to families, friendships, daily routines and the wider community can have negative consequences for children’s well-being, development and protection. In addition, measures used to prevent and control the spread of COVID-19 can expose children to protection risks. Home-based, facility-based and zonal-based quarantine and isolation measures can all negatively impact children and their families. From The Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action, this brief is to support child protection practitioners to better respond to the child protection risks during a COVID-19 pandemic. Part 1 presents the potential child protection risks COVID-19 can pose to children.

Psychology Supervisors, Trainees, Teachers & Students During COVID-19 – From the APA, a growing collection of resources to support psychology supervisors and trainees in navigating the impact on each individual and their training experience.

Updates from the Association of American Medical Colleges – For those of you teaching or otherwise working in medical colleges, the AAMC has remained in regular communication with its membership to provide relevant updates for educators and students.

A Message of Support from ASPPB, the National Register, The Trust and ABPP – ASPPB, the National Register, The Trust, and ABPP have come together to help improving access to valuable resources, recognizing the diversity of needs and issues. This document provides further information to this end.

A Memo to Program  Training  Directors,  Commission  on  Accreditation  Site  Visitors, Commissioners and Accreditation Constituents from APA Office of Program Consultation and Accreditation – The APA Office of Program Consultation and Accreditation (OPCA) has received calls wanting to know about compliance with accreditation policies and procedures in light of the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19). This memo begins to answer those questions.

NYNJADOT and PSYDNYS Statement and Recommended Guidelines for Psychology Trainees – The Externship and Compliance Committees advocate for suspension of all non-essential, in-person outpatient psychology services to protect the safety and welfare of our communities during this global health crisis. Further details are available in this memo

COVID-19 Mental Health Impacts: Resources for Psychiatrists – With COVID-19 evolving rapidly across the world, APA’s Committee on Psychiatric Dimensions of Disasters and the APA’s Council on International Psychiatry compiled the following list of resources for psychiatrists. The resources cover not only the physical impact of the coronavirus, but on its potential mental health and psychosocial issues and responses. The resources also include a section on telepsychiatry, to prepare for the possibility of isolation and/or quarantine.

Psychiatric Patients and Pandemics – What can psychiatric clinicians do to keep their patients healthy in this coronavirus time? Ideas from Col. (Ret.) Elspeth Cameron Ritchie, MD, MPH

Physicians and Health Systems Can Reduce Fear Around COVID-19 – We are at a time, unfortunately, of significant public uncertainty and fear of “the coronavirus.” Mixed and inaccurate messages from national leaders in the setting of delayed testing availability have heightened fears and impeded a uniformity in responses, medical and preventive. Here is yet another way to help.

Coronavirus on the Inpatient Unit: A New Challenge for Psychiatry – COVID-19 represents a new challenge for the inpatient psychiatry unit. Some patients on an acute psychiatric unit may be agitated, uncooperative, or even violent, and it’s not hard to imagine the distress of anyone who has a patient spit on them as we’re all trying to remember not to shake hands. Inevitably, there will be patients who present for psychiatric admission with no respiratory symptoms, who are admitted and then become ill and are diagnosed with COVID-19.

Health Care Provider Wellness

CareBridge Resources for August 2020 – The latest articles, support group meetings, and webinars for Cooper employees.

FACE COVID – a set of practical steps for responding effectively to the Corona crisis, using the principles of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT).

5 Ways for Nurses to Prevent and Cope with Compassion Fatigue – A practical guide from nursejournal.org.

Conversations for Clinicians: Hosted by: Dr. Tina Runyan and Dr. Joan Fleishman, clinical health psychologists and faculty, with specialized expertise in supporting health care professionals

Moral Support Meeting for Nurse’s via Zoom – NJSNA wants to help you through this challenging time with our Healthy Nurse Healthy New Jersey (HNHNJ) initiative. The HNHNJ Team will be holding a “Moral Support” Zoom Meeting every Wednesday during April at 7PM. This Moral Support Meeting intends to allow nurses to have a safe place where New Jersey nurses can discuss their feelings during this emotionally trying time. Thomas C. Barrett, Ph.D., a licensed psychologist, professor and chair at the College of Saint Elizabeth will be on the calls to help nurses find a way to process their grief and cope with the stressors of our current Covid-19 crisis. More at the Zoom meeting page.

Resources for Professionals for Wellness, Resilience, Coping, and Support During COVID-19 – From CHOP, an overview of their comprehensive approach to bolstering their doctors, nurses, and all other staff keeping the hospital open through the current challenge.

Meditations with Dr. Tara Brach – Tara Brach’s teachings blend Western psychology and Eastern spiritual practices, mindful attention to our inner life, and a full, compassionate engagement with our world. The result is a distinctive voice in Western Buddhism, one that offers a wise and caring approach to freeing ourselves and society from suffering.

University of Colorado Health Care ProviderWell-Being Primer – Compiled by Helen L. Coons, Ph.D., ABPP and colleagues, a collection of concrete strategies to help manage stress during this challenging time.

Intensive Care Society: Wellbeing Resource Library – The Intensive Care Society have shared their new wellbeing resource pack developed with Dr Julie Highfield, Clinical Psychologist which aims to improve our understanding of psychological wellbeing at work, the impact reduced wellbeing can have and what we can do in response, and includes tips for dealing with extraordinary situations such as COVID-19 and everyday working in critical care.

Psychosocial Support Plan for Health Care Workers and Providers – Originally developed by the British Columbia Health Care System in 2012 as an Influenza Response Plan, this guide provides information for navigating Psychosocial Support for Health Care Workers and Providers.

Caring for Yourself & Others During Covid-19 Pandemic: Managing Healthcare Workers’ Stress – From the Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare, a webinar focused on managing healthcare workers’ stress. Download the referenced Stress First Aid Self-Care Organizational Handout.

Montefiore Training on Anxiety and COVID-19 – A webinar for healthcare works and related sectors focused on teaching skills to get you through this time, for both short and long term distress.

Health Care Provider Well-Being During Covid-19 – Compiled by Dr. Helen Coons and colleagues at University of Colorado, this is an a quick reference infographic of concrete strategies to help manage stress during this challenging time, perfect for printing hanging hanging throughout the hospital.

Coping Through Acceptance and Change – An infographic reminding of us what we can change to help us focus our efforts, as well as what we can change and therefor can strive to accept through mindfulness and other strategies. Also good for printing and displaying in the areas where you work as a frequent reminder.

Square Breathing – A mindfulness tool the clinicians of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine often teach patients, you may find this helpful yourselves during some of the more difficult moments in navigating this current challenge.

Preventing and Coping with Secondary Traumatic Stress – Secondary traumatic stress (STS) occurs when a person bears witness to others’ trauma. This printable guide reminds us of signs to look for and what to do to cope with this.

Resources for Healthcare Works with Children and Elderly Parents – Compiled at CHOP, this PDF provides resources and suggestions for healthcare workers who also care for children and aging parents at home.

Intensive Care Society: Wellbeing Resource Library – The Intensive Care Society has shared their wellbeing resource pack developed with Dr Julie Highfield, Clinical Psychologist. These posters aim to improve our understanding of psychological wellbeing at work, the impact reduced wellbeing can have and what we can do in response, and includes tips for dealing with extraordinary situations such as COVID-19 and everyday working in critical care.

Scientific Publications

The psychological impact of quarantine and how to reduce it: rapid review of the evidence -From The Lancet, the findings of a review of the psychological impact of quarantine spanning three electronic databases.

Effective use of technology in clinical supervision – Clinical supervision is integral to continuing professional development of health professionals. With advances in technology, clinical supervision too can be undertaken using mediums such as videoconference, email and tele-conference. This article outlines ten evidence-informed, practical tips stemming from a review of the literature that will enable health care stakeholders to use technology effectively and efficiently while undertaking clinical supervision. By highlighting the “how to” aspect, telesupervision can be delivered in the right way, to the right health professional, at the right time.
Scientific Literature

How health anxiety influences responses to viral outbreaks like COVID-19 – From the Journal of Anxiety Disorders, a guide to What all decisionmakers, health authorities, and health care professionals need to know Health Anxiety.pdf