Transforming learning: Teaching compassion and caring values in higher education

As a result of reported failings in the care of people in the health and social care sector in the UK, HE providers who produce professionals to work in these areas being challenged to address caring values in the student body. As values are subjective and affective, this requires the learning environment to not only promote critical thinking and the development of professional competencies, but to facilitate personal growth and change within students at cognitive, emotional and spiritual levels. As the latter dimensions are frequently ignored in education, this is very challenging: it requires a curriculum that supports students to understand, reflect on and, if necessary, restructure their own caring values in order to develop a transcendent lens i.e. the ability to put others before their own self interests and that of the organisation in which they work. It also requires students to develop the skills to challenge others in situations were caring values are not achieved or sustained. This can only be accomplished as a coproduced phenomenon, as it requires students who are prepared to engage in the process and educators, in both HE and practice settings, who are able and willing to role model appropriate skills and facilitate a learning relationship in which students can grow. However, if the true wisdom of caring values is to be realised in everyday practice, then this kind of transformational learning has to be supported at wider structural levels, and this just may be its achilles heel

Pearls of wisdom: using the single case study or ‘gem’ to identify strategies for mediating stress and work-life imbalance in healthcare staff

Background The growing levels of stress and work-life imbalance reported in contemporary health and social care arenas in the UK can be linked to the neoliberal principles driving performance and intensification in the workforce. These pressures are an area of concern in terms of staff health and wellbeing and the impact of these on the care and compassion of patients/service users. Aims This paper reports on a single case study that was part of a wider interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) that aimed to explore the levels of stress and work-life imbalance experienced by occupational therapists working in health and social-care sectors in Wales in the UK. Methods Interpretative phenomenological analysis was used as both an approach and tool of analysis. The use of the single case study and gem as a tool in IPA to pique interest and promote further investigation is also explicated. Results Identified four key strategies that underpinned an approach to mediating stress and work-life balance for staff in the workplace. These were: a sense of choice and autonomy over workloads and decision-making; congruence with family values; supportive workplace attitudes and expectations of others; and finally, that the ability to reconcile conflicts i.e. integrate or harmonise them with personal values, as opposed to holding a sense of compromise marked by concession or loss, can address cognitive and emotional dissonance. Conclusions The existing constructs to support the health and wellbeing of staff in health and social-care settings are ineffective. These strategies offer tools to address this and successfully promote a sense of personal integrity and meaning in life. In turn, this can achieve and sustain a more resilient workforce providing the positive energy needed to be caring and compassionate in their practice

The influence of organizational workplace cultures on employee work-life balance

This thesis explores the influence of organizational workplace cultures on the lived experience of work-life balance for individual employees. It focuses on the experiences of a specific professional group called occupational therapists and samples these in two workplace organizations in the public sector; one healthcare and one social services setting. In-depth interviews were used to gather participants’ accounts. Findings suggested that the social services setting had more temporal flexibility, and a more supportive culture of work-life balance than healthcare, but that both organizations utilised power and performance to the advantage of organizational outcomes. Individual employees had little autonomy, control and choice over work-life balance and both organizations created and maintained a state of work-life imbalance as opposed to work-life balance for their staff. Both organizations used the individual occupational therapist’s time and energy as a human resource in the workplace, irrespective of the subsequent impacts on the individual’s personal and family well-being. There was a notable absence from participation in the community and wider social and natural environments in all accounts shared. This study posits that having time and energy for such activities in daily life would enhance well-being at multiple levels of significance and create a more balanced, sustainable and resilient model of work-life balance. Findings suggest that work-life balance is a co-produced phenomenon, with complex interconnected relationships and argues that viewing work-life balance as a whole rather than in its parts is necessary if we are to achieve an egalitarian model of work-life balance, valuing individual well-being and resilience and sustainability of human time and energy over organizational success. This study proposes that organizations need to adapt their cultures to develop a more egalitarian and employee-centred approach to work-life balance but identifies that cultural change at organizational levels alone would not be effective in challenging work-life imbalance

Evaluation of interprofessional working on a therapist/nurse-led rehabilitation ward for older people in Wales

This article is a critical evaluation of a therapist/nurse-led service in a rehabilitation ward for older people (aged 65+) in an acute hospital setting in Wales, UK. The service was initiated as a means to manage increased pressures on services during the winter period between January 2016 to April 2016. It was focused on delivering comprehensive rehabilitation and robust discharge planning in order to facilitate a safe and timely return into the community. In this context, rehabilitation refers to improving patients' personal skills of independence in order for them to be discharged safely in their own home (Filmore-Elbourne and le May, 2015). Through drawing on a range of perspectives, including staff interviews and a focus group, the aim of this paper is to raise awareness of the issues that influenced the effective interprofessional working of a therapist/nurse-led rehabilitation ward for older people in an acute hospital setting. These perspectives were gathered between June and July 2016 following the closure of the ward in order to assess the perceived effectiveness of the service