Mending Our Fences: Recent Episodes
Mending Our Fences
Welcome to Mending Our Fences, a podcast series sponsored by the North East Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network and Cooperative Extension in this region. This podcast is where folks from the realms of agriculture and mental health come together to look at some of the every-day hard things that come with life in agriculture, take them apart to learn more about what makes them hard and put them back together in sometimes surprising ways that promote hope, possibility and resilience.
The podcast is hosted by Lisa Ohara from Bodhi Counseling in Maryland who talks with three Extension educators including Josh Taylor with University of Vermont; Ginger Fenton with Penn State University Cooperative Extension; and Maria Pippidis, Extension Educator University of Delaware Cooperative Extension.
These Cooperative Extension guests share stories they have experienced as they’ve worked with farm audiences; but names are changed to protect clientele. Though the stories may feel familiar, each episode sheds light on sticky farming issues, and as a group we explore what makes it hard to talk about that topic and identify some solutions. We wanted to create the opportunity to make it easier for you to come together to support each other because we all deal with hard things. Our hope is to normalize a lot of the impact of the stressors by taking an individual topic apart, add some clarity and offer best practice in managing those stressors. Together we can work to Mend Our Fences.
The connection to the land can be a source of pride and grounding, but it can also be a source of a lot of stress. This episode explores these connections and offers strategies for managing change and uncertainty.
Being part of a family can be really hard and complicated being part of a family trying to run a farm can be even more complicated. This episode explores some of these complexities, unravels them and offers strategies to manage intricate family dynamics.
Change one of the biggest problems of being a human mammal. Bad things aren’t supposed to happen to good people; yet change is everywhere every day. This episode explores how we experience uncertainty and change and offers methods to gracefully manage small and big moments of adjustment.
There are challenging dynamics, finances and uncertainties when it comes to succession planning and farm legacy. This episode explores some of these complexities and offers strategies to manage tough conversations and processes.
Loss of the farm, an animal, loved one can all elicit feelings of grief, sadness or even shame. This episode touches on different types of loss on the farm, how change can create feelings of loss and how the anticipation of a loss and foreboding joy may not be the best way to manage change. In this podcast you’ll learn some ways to manage grief and loss in health ways.
In this podcast we focus on the things that help us be stronger, what different types of resilience looks and feels like and coping strategies that you can put in place to help maximize your ability to be resilient.
Managing finances and the uncertainty of markets can be a huge stressor for people in the agricultural community. This episode explores different types of financial stressors and provides strategies for supporting financial wellbeing.