Increasing Joy in Practice
Joy in Practice is often difficult to measure. There are systemic indicators that can lead to conclusions, such as increased or decreased turnover, however, the measure that appears to be most important in healthcare is the observations reported by team leaders, supervisors and the caregivers themselves.
Among the most prevalent barriers to Joy in Practice are compassion, fatigue and burnout. Clinicians and support staff can easily feel emotionally drained from the complex issues and challenges faced by persons served, with which practitioners can over-empathize and at times, over-personalize. Supervisory tasks include monitoring and addressing these barriers that detract from feeling productive and helpful. Additionally, clinicians must work within an often compassion-challenged care system, impacting the ability to feel effective. Learned helplessness is a real risk for both persons served and practitioners. These factors can affect the perception of quality of care, sense of efficacy and feelings of competence. Joy in Practice becomes a casualty. The EDM program offers a way for Bridgeway Partial Care staff to feel effective beyond face-to-face interaction; bolstering care delivery to participants even when not physically present. In this way, everyone involved in the program feels a strong collaboration, working together towards the shared, attainable goal of success in the community – post live interaction and regardless of the location of person served. This keeps the principle motivation - the vision of recovery - in sight, even as smaller individualized goals are highlighted. Although application of skills and utilization of resources in the environment of need have always been the theoretical mindset, in practice, persons served struggle to apply learned skills outside of direct interaction with and direction from providers. It is easy for persons served to lose sight of “why” and “when” to use skills and resources. As a result, application and utilization in the needed environment – home, with family or friends and in the community, fall off. In turn, providers often feel as if work with persons served loses effectiveness and at times, stops after the interventions are provided. The EDM program helps to actively engage persons served in the overall rehabilitation process and often unexpectedly, empowers them to use skills independently. EDM’s application of the Clubhouse “membership” model, designed as a continual communication loop, allows for more regular and frequent support to participants as well as a more regular and frequent stream of feedback to care providers regarding what participants need and find useful. Membership fosters feeling of community, connection and having a voice – both for persons served and for staff.
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TRANSFORMING THE PERCEPTION OF MENTAL HEALTH COMMUNITY SERVICES
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