Building Resilient Teams in Healthcare

Resilience is relational.

The demands on healthcare providers have never been higher.

Burnout, turnover and moral injury are proving costly both to people and to organizations. By partnering with Red Oak Resilience Strategies, you adopt resilience as a strategic advantage — improving staff retention, reducing absenteeism, enhancing patient-experience and strengthening culture.

We provide training to healthcare and frontline teams to grow stronger, more grounded, and more connected—so they can deliver exceptional care, sustain their well-being, and thrive in demanding environments.

Resilience is not a fixed trait. Resilience is a skill that can be learned, practiced and embedded into how individuals and teams lead, relate and recover.

The Current Reality

Healthcare professionals are under unprecedented strain. High patient volumes, staffing instability, emotional trauma from day-to-day care, and decreased downtime are creating a perfect storm of burnout, disengagement, and turnover. The cost isn’t just human — it’s operational. When teams falter, care quality and patient experience suffer.

Leaders can’t recruit their way out of this crisis alone — they must build resilience into the system.

Imagine a different scenario…

  • DECREASED BURNOUT

    We teach frontline professionals to recognise early signs of overload and restore themselves before crisis. When you can get ahead of the crisis, you decrease negative impacts.

  • RESORATIVE CONNECTION

    You can experience the quantifiable benefits that come from having teams that pause, reflect and reconnect — building cohesion rather than isolation.

  • EFFICIENT RECOVERY

    Our approach isn’t about asking you to do more with less; it’s about building recovery, peer support and psychological safety into what your teams are already doing!

  • STRONG TEAMS

    Imagine what these cumulative effects could mean for YOU: units that operate with less conflict, fewer sick days, stronger communication, and overall sustained performance.

How we help

We deliver evidence-informed, practical training that strengthens the resilience of individuals, teams, and leaders. Our training brings together frontline healthcare experience, a relational neurobiological framework, and organizational behaviour design to provide a new lens through which to view the challenges facing our healthcare system. The result? Grounded, connected, and efficient teams.

Our Core Belief:
Resilience cannot simply be demanded. But it can be taught, fostered, and intentionally integrated into our professional systems.

Our foundational training

Where do I start? 

The Introductory Resilience Sprint

This 90-minute session is for healthcare leaders, frontline supervisors, and team leads who want an immediate, evidence-informed introduction to resilience—without the time commitment of a full workshop.

Email to book your session

In this highly focused 90-minute session, participants will learn

  • Explore how neurobiology is connected to burnout.

  • Experience a brief, guided self-regulation practice that helps the body and brain return to balance in the moment.

  • Learn a micro-reset routine for huddles and team check-ins that builds connection and collective calm.

  • Develop a Next-Day Practice Plan—a simple action to try within 24 hours that reinforces learning.

  • Receive a digital toolkit including reflection prompts, reset scripts, and grounding cues.

Why it matters

Resilience training doesn’t have to be complex or time-consuming. This short, high-impact session is the starting point for sustainable change—showing teams that resilience isn’t a buzzword, it’s a learnable practice.

Participants leave with one small, concrete behaviour they can start using right away, and the confidence to begin shifting their team culture.

Outcomes

Greater awareness of personal stress responses

  • Tools for rapid self-reset and emotional regulation

  • Improved team communication and empathy

  • A sense of momentum and shared purpose

  • Readiness for deeper leadership or team-based training

Logistics

Duration: 90 minutes

Delivery: In-person

Materials: Digital handout + optional printed cue card

Follow-Up: 7-day micro-learning email to reinforce new habits

Additional Trainings

Core Resilience Essentials for Senior Teams

  • A focused half-day session that gives leaders immediate tools to both model and foster team resilience.

Leading Resilient Teams for Managers

  • Interactive, skill-building sessions three half-day sessions delivered over a 4-6 week period specifically designed to help managers foster emotional regulation, relational trust, and meaningful recovery within their teams.

Supported Complete Unit Roll-Out

  • A fully customizable comprehensive implementation program for a complete unit with monthly refreshers, coaching, and measurable outcomes (support across approximately 6 months).

Resilience Lab for Executive Leadership

  • A half-day or full-day strategic design session aligning organizational systems and incentives to support and plan for workforce resilience and retention.

Organizational Outcomes

Reduced burnout and turnover through proactive recovery practices.

Improved communication and team cohesion, lowering conflict and error rates.

Enhanced patient experience via emotionally grounded, consistent care.

Better ROI on workforce investments through measurable retention and engagement gains.

Who we are

Jill Henderson, RN, MN

Jill is an educator, researcher, and advocate for resilience in nursing education. As Faculty and Program Coordinator for the Practical Nursing program at Fleming College, Jill leads innovative curriculum development and supports student success. Her current research focuses on enhancing resilience among Practical Nursing students, and she serves as a lead investigator on multiple funded studies exploring the impact of resilience training in nursing. Jill’s broader scholarly interests include therapeutic nursing relationships and Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD), reflecting her commitment to compassionate, evidence-informed care. She also serves on the board of directors for the 360 Nurse Practitioner-Led Clinic in Peterborough, Ontario.

Wendy Morgan, MA-Ed, MA-CP, RP

Wendy has been developing and delivering curriculum at Fleming College for nearly twenty years. She currently teaches in Social Service Work, and Mental Health and Addictions where she teaches students about the impact of stress and trauma on neurodevelopment, and how understanding the brain can support emotional regulation and resilience. Wendy is also a lead researcher in a funded research project exploring the benefits of mental health resilience training for the nursing profession. Beyond the college, she has a psychotherapy practice where she uses a neuropsychological approach to support clients. As a volunteer, Wendy serves on the board of directors for Five Counties Children’s Centre in Peterborough, Ontario.

Take the Next Step

Let us customize a training that fits your needs. Reach out to book a discovery meeting to explore how we can partner.