and speaking of
experiences
"Brandi truly invoked change, immediate change where the attendees implement her suggestions on the spot, without hesitation and throughout the rest of the conference; they were considering ways to bring it back to their communities before the day was over."
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Elizabeth Reekie, Sports and Program Director, Special Olympics Alberta
video:
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NEW: You Can't Play in A Show Home:
How to Restore, Retain, and Re-engage Your Caring Workforce
Many people and organizations appear to have everything "in place", like a show home with perfectly placed pillows and fingerprint-free appliances. However, maintaining a show home takes energy, and often causes anxiety and unnecessary stress. The perfect show home is not flexible and open to change, it is pretty to look at but not functional, and it’s certainly not fun.
Drawing from personal experience and expertise as a college professor, therapeutic play specialist and CEO, Brandi offers profound insights into how living a ‘show home’ life (taking care of others and always appearing strong and capable) can erode our ability to take care of ourselves and do our best work. She knows firsthand the ramifications of neglecting one's playful side; a loss that extends to our ability to cope, connect, and create.
In this riveting and humorous keynote, Brandi unpacks the transformative power of play in the professional world of human services and healthcare. She will highlight how understanding the essence of play – what inspires, motivates, and ignites creativity within your team – is pivotal for successful staff recruitment, retention, and re-engagement
In this eye-opening keynote, you will:
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Learn to recognize the importance of authenticity, dignity, and communication in molding a workplace culture that champions mental health and wellness.
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Understand and confront fear and perfectionism as significant impediments to fostering a healthy workplace culture.
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Discover the intrinsic link between play and pivotal workplace dimensions such as wellness, teamwork, and inclusion.
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Identify your personal and organizational "Show Home" characteristics and three transformative methods to change them.
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Implement a three-step approach to building an environment that champions innovation, inclusivity, and connection (especially for compassion-led professionals grappling with stress, poor mental health, and burnout.)
Map out a journey towards collaborative self-care and empowerment, and set the stage for creating a robust, sustainable team and enhanced caregiving outcomes that thrive on the messiness of play!
Stigma or Superpower?
Where Mental Health & Play
Fit Into the Workplace
"The estimated cost of poor mental health in Canadian workplaces is at least $50 billion dollars annually and the number of workers unable to work due to poor mental health is $500,000 /week" (Mental Health Commission Canada, 2021) –but Brandi is on a mission to help shift this, and it’s working!
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Steer your organization into the future with this informative, hilarious talk that shifts “stigma” to “strength” and helps us uncover our hidden superpowers through her “Brave Me, Brave Us, Brave Business” model.
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Indulge in Brandi Heather’s signature humor as she sheds light on an uncomfortable subject that has organizations across the world reframing coping, courage and connection. Find out how her extraordinary experience as a College Professor, Therapeutic Play Specialist, Entrepreneur and person living with mental illness has given Brandi the fastrack to helping solve some of the most valuable problems surrounding mental health inclusion and innovation in the workplace today.
You’ll leave changed, and ready to help shift the world for others too!
Healing Our Caring Systems:
Rebuilding Resilience, Risk and Connection
Brandi offers a collaborative new lens for compassion-led workforces to THRIVE. Taking care of others professionally is rewarding and challenging, and people in frontline services often struggle to balance survival with thriving. So who is taking care of people who take care of people?
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This keynote restores and reignites people in human services, healthcare and education by showing them that what they want most for others they need to give themselves.
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This interactive, action-packed keynote gives participants strategies for increased personal and professional confidence and creativity, leading to greater organizational effectiveness and empowered workplace cultures.
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Known for her humor, powerful energy and 25+ years of experience as a College Professor and Therapeutic Play Specialist, Brandi Heather is inspiring people who take care of people to return to play.
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Discover how to help yourself and those around you to feel significantly more competent, courageous and creative. Brilliant, heartwarming and inspiring, this is one talk you don't want to miss!
The Science (and Profitability)
of Play
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What do leading organizations in their industries like Zappos, Microsoft and IDEO have in common?
They ‘make room for play’ because they know there’s a direct correlation between profit, innovation and allowing their employees the time and space to get creative, playful and explore solutions “outside the status quo”.
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Discover three steps to building a creative, courageous, connected workforce that stays longer and plays.
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Join top-ranking organizations who are pushing the envelope in their industries by getting an expert-backed introduction to what it means to include play, and where you’ll see the biggest benefits (and profits) by giving your teams this counterintuitive competitive edge.
Time-out: How Lack of Inclusion (and Play) is Costing Your Company Millions
Why does feeling “included” impact our ability to do our jobs? Beyond the interpersonal benefits of feeling safe, valued and “belonging” in team settings, find out how the sneaky cost of exclusion may be responsible for an alarming amount of sick days, retention and low performance/effort in your staff members (and leaders!).
And don’t look now, but these costs may be pouring over to your customer service, where easy-sales and opportunities to build customer loyalty are being left on the table because employees are afraid to speak up, express themselves or aren’t feeling included in organizational efforts.
Find out how other progressive organizations have made their way through these challenges and have been driving productivity, engagement and profit (by 17-20%; Gallop 2021) by incorporating play, inclusion and diversity into their workplace cultures. Lean into the brilliance that is Brandi Heather as she guides you through a quick-witted, highly-immersive experience that convinces even the most traditional of us to widen our understanding of inclusion and drive meaningful change in our workplace cultures.
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