KINDNESS CAUSES RIPPLE EFFECT Spreading kindness is the aim of a new initiative set up by SCOPe staff in St James’s Hospital.
“We, the kindness champions, make it our business to model, cultivate and encourage kindness in our everyday work in the hospital. Being kind in the workplace creates a ripple effect, it impacts the general level of positivity, boosts morale, and is contagious as the good feelings it promotes make people likely to pay it forward,” explained Laura Kehoe, Medical Social Worker, St James's Hospital. The Kindness Project began in 2018 when four SCOPe representatives attended a ‘Leading Care I programme’ through the HSE Leadership Academy. As part of that programme they were asked to demonstrate their ability to create the right conditions for frontline staff, irrespective of their background, to deliver good quality, patient-centred, co-ordinated and cost effective care. The four SCOPe representatives felt that the learning goal from this programme was to develop a joint initiative across the SCOPe team with the hope of cultivating kindness. Laura explained the thinking behind the project. “Every morning on my way to work, I pass the same bin man on the street outside my apartment. Every morning without fail we smile and say good morning. Same time, same place. Rain, hail or shine. We do not say anything more, I do not know his name, nor he mine, we know nothing about each other,” she said. “I doubt that many people would acknowledge him, let alone interact with him, and I would like to think that he takes as much satisfaction from this interaction as I do. He makes me smile, and not just that, but every morning, his kind gesture
restores my faith in humanity and gives me the strength to face the day. This to me is kindness. “I am by no means a saint. I simply believe that we should treat others as we ourselves want to be treated. Saying please and thank you goes a long way. Smile, say hello, hold a door for someone, give up your seat, and let someone ahead of you in the queue. We are all human and we all deserve to be treated with respect and kindness. “It is of this premise that the Kindness Project was born.” The four
SCOPe representatives held a workshop with 40 other SCOPe members with the ultimate aim of determining what behaviours staff felt constituted kindness. “The feedback from that workshop was that SCOPe staff believed that; introducing yourself and using your name, smiling and saying hello, actively listening and being present, practicing kindness to self and practicing gratitude were the pillars that constitute kindness. And thus we have the ‘kindness bundle’. The kindness bundle was first introduced at a Research & Innovation breakfast in 2019. A committee was established to drive this project forward and to keep the kindness bundle active,” said Laura. The committee is comprised of representatives from each of the SCOPe disciplines that act as kindness champions. The current committee driving the SCOPe Kindness Project forward is: Emer Foley (Speech and Language Therapy), Laura Muldoon (Clinical Nutrition), Kat Clancy (Occupational Therapy), Sheila McCarthy and Sheila Roche (Physiotherapy Services), and, Laura Kehoe (Medical Social Work) is the chairperson.
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