Before facilitating Health and Human Services Compassion Resilience groups, please reference these tips for facilitating small groups and the engaging participants with questions resource.
G. Facilitator Guide
Category: A Toolkit For Healthcare
F. References
E. Stress throughout the Career Cycle
D. Supporting Change Efforts of Others and Ourselves
Whether we are growing our compassion resilience to prevent compassion fatigue or to address existing compassion fatigue, this intentional shift often includes changing attitudes and behaviors that no longer serve us well. The Stages of Change offers a model for people to understand the complex path towards successful change and how to support our own change efforts as well as the change efforts of colleagues and those we supervise. This model identifies effective action and responses at each stage to avoid the unintended negative consequences of mismatched efforts.
James Prochaska, John Norcross and Carlo DiClemente are the researchers and architects of the Stages of Change model. It is also known as the Transtheoretical Model. The model assesses an individual’s readiness to act on a new, healthier behavior, and provides strategies, or processes of change to guide the individual through the stages of change to Action and Maintenance.
As we engage in culture change, it can also be helpful to take inventory on where the culture currently stands. This section offers a resource, The Relational Culture Check Up as a self-reflection and conversation designed for leaders and staff to learn about the relational culture of their organization.
The Stages of Change Powerpoint provides an overview of the Stages of Change model. View the slides in the mode that allows you to read the notes for each slide or as pdf.
Leadership Activity
What’s the Stage? What’s My Response? This brief activity lists statements to practice identifying the stage they represent. It will build leaders’ ability to identify what stage someone is at so they can choose effective supports for that person’s desired behavior change. Pages two and three provide a chart that takes the statements from the What Stage activity and suggests helpful responses to support that person in their current stage of change.
Staff Activity
Navigating Your Way Through the Stages of Change handout that describes each stage and gives self-help hints for those looking at their own change behaviors and hints for how to help others as they navigate change.
Individual Reflection Worksheet The individual names a target change and goal behavior, identifies the stage of their current change, and completes questions based on their stage of change.
Relational Culture Checkup The Relational Culture Checkup—focused specifically on youth-adult relationships—is a five-minute online check-up for leaders and staff, designed to help you identify what your organization is doing well and uncover areas for improvement. This checkup will lead you through the two components of the relational culture, assess each of these, and report the results to help you reflect on the core mindsets, skills, practices, and supporting structures needed to cultivate and sustain a relationship-rich culture.
C. Crisis Response for Significant Disclosures and Reactions
B. Foundational Beliefs about Behavior
A. An Introduction for Leaders
Engagement in and modeling of concepts outlined in the compassion resilience toolkit by leaders is essential to building and maintaining a compassionate workplace culture. Below are some resources to support leadership with the implementation of the toolkit.
An Introduction to the Compassion Resilience Toolkit
This resources outlines the rational for compassion resilience and the core concepts included in the toolkit.
The Business Case for Promoting Compassion
Leadership Toolkit Implementation Considerations
Guidance is provided for leaders on things to consider to best support with the implementation and integration of each section of the toolkit.
There are sections of the toolkit that benefit from additional leadership guidance. Below are documents to direct that guidance.
12. Compassionate Engagement with Families & Other Caregivers
“Engagement is often viewed as synonymous with involvement. Involvement in services is important, but real engagement goes beyond that. Families can be involved and compliant without being engaged. Engagement is motivating and empowering families to recognize their own needs, strengths and resources and to take an active role in changing things for the better. Engagement is what keeps families working in the sometimes slow process of positive change” –Sue Steib (2004).
Key Activity
Compassionate Connections with Families or Caregivers
Wellness Practice
Bringing It All Together Through My Hands — An activity to summarize compassion and self-compassion found in the document to distribute in the information section of the toolkit
Supplementary Activities/Handouts
Responding to Challenging Interactions with Families – handout and possible role-play activity
Communicating Difficult News to Clients and Their Families
Stages of Change Applied to Family Conversations
Adopting a Strengths-Based Approach
For Easy Printing
You can find all documents in this section included in this pdf for easy printing.
The documents included are numbered individually, not as one document.
Additional Resources
Family members often become caregivers outside of the health care setting, and offering support is essential. The Schwartz Center offers various links to resources to help family caregivers.
The article “Few hospitals dedicate space for family caregivers, but that could change” discusses supporting family caregivers through dedicated spaces and other resources, and the importance of family caregiver well-being on client well-being.
The core concepts of Patient- and Family-Centered Care are used widely in efforts to better engage families in the delivery of care. To learn more about incorporating such an approach into your work in order to better engage with families consider visiting the Institute for Patient- and Family-Centered Care website.
11. Wellness and Resilience Strategies: Heart
In the compass model the four sectors, Mind, Spirit, Strength and Heart, not only contribute to your overall wellness, but also provide guidance on strategies to help build your compassion resilience. Heart is one of the sectors. This section will take a deeper look at our emotions and our relationships—both with ourselves and with others. We will be invited to focus on our self-compassion as we seek to be compassionate in our relationships with clients, their families and our colleagues.
Key Activity
A Self-Compassion Exercise (10min) Dr. Neff
If Self-Compassion Scale was completed in Section 2, use developing an emotional regulation plans listed in the Supplementary Activities/Handouts section as your key activity asking staff to complete one for themselves.
Wellness Practice
Circle Agenda
Staff Circle Agenda, Section Eleven
Core Content Visual
Colleague Conversations – Use this Visual and Display in Staff Break Areas
Posting this visual in common staff areas will serve as a reminder of content covered to staff and perhaps serve as a future conversation started for deeper reflection among staff members.
Supplementary Activities/Handouts
Developing an Emotional Regulation Plan
For Easy Printing
You can find all documents in this section included in this pdf for easy printing.
The documents included are numbered individually, not as one document.
Links Specifically for Leadership
Fostering Relationship Building among Staff
Additional Resources
Article discusses, from the perspective of nurses, workplace relationships, specifically trust and how it contributes to feeling accepted and valued by colleagues.
This article offers a brief introduction and tips for developing better communication skills through structured dialog and communicating your trust distinctions.
10. Wellness and Resilience Strategies: Strength
In the compass model the four sectors, Mind, Spirit, Strength and Heart, not only contribute to your overall wellness, but also provide guidance on strategies to help build your compassion resilience. Strength is one of the sectors. Strength encompasses stress resilience and care for the body. Stress resilience allows us to maintain a non-anxious presence as we encounter the inevitable stressors of our job. Developing our ability to care for our bodies and listen to the signs that our bodies give us supports our whole health and minimizes any unhealthy responses to stress. Becoming stress resilient and caring for our bodies often require assistance from others. Help seeking is a key skill for both of the areas in the strength section of the Wellness Compass.
Key Activity
Listening and Responding to Stress in Your Body (10-15 min)
Wellness Practice
Care for Body – Develop Your Plan (10-15 min)
Circle Agenda
Staff Circle Agenda, Section Ten
Core Content Visual
Choose Nourishing vs. Depleting! – Use this Visual and Display in Staff Break Areas
Posting this visual in common staff areas will serve as a reminder of content covered to staff and perhaps serve as a future conversation started for deeper reflection among staff members.
Supplementary Activities/Handouts
Identifying Nourishing vs. Depleting Activities (15-30min)
Dr. Kelly McGonigal’s TED Talk on How to Make Stress Your Friend explores a perspective shift on stress when the healthy pressure of growth in your work place feels overwhelming.
For Easy Printing
You can find all documents in this section included in this pdf for easy printing.
The documents included are numbered individually, not as one document.
Additional Resources
This article discusses the stages of change applied to emotional resilience. The website offers many brief articles on topics included in this toolkit.
