Navigating Stress in Community Care: Tools for Supporting Individuals, Families, and Relationships

with the Western Tidewater Community Services Board

This training, conducted by Elizabeth Earnshaw, LMFT explores how stress impacts human functioning—physiologically, emotionally, and relationally—and how helping professionals can better support individuals and families experiencing chronic stress. Participants will deepen their understanding of the ways stress manifests in the body and how it alters behavior, communication, and engagement with others and with community services. Using Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory as a framework, participants will also examine how stress operates within nested systems—from the individual and family outward to community and institutional contexts. Through a combination of psychoeducation, reflection, and applied discussion, this workshop provides concrete tools to improve relational effectiveness, reduce escalation, and foster greater empathy and regulation when working with clients in high-stress environments.