You are the one who holds the space. You sit with survivors, support witnesses, and show up for victims on their hardest days — and you do it with steadiness, compassion, and a dog by your side. But the weight of that work goes somewhere. And for too many handlers, it goes unacknowledged.
Secondary traumatic stress is real, it is common in this field, and it is not a sign of weakness. It is the cost of caring deeply — and there is a path through it.
Katie Gray, founder of the Empowered Heart Foundation and a tireless advocate for handler wellness, opens Day 2 with an honest, grounded exploration of what secondary trauma looks like for facility dog handlers, how to recognize it in yourself and your colleagues, and the evidence-based strategies that make this work sustainable over the long arc of a career.
This is not a session about pushing through. It is about building the inner resources to show up — for your dog, for the people you serve, and for yourself — year after year.
