fbpage
Mindfulness Supports Professional Intent to Care

Mindfulness Supports Professional Intent to Care

by | Oct 24, 2016 | Blog, Health & Wellness | 0 comments

Treating self, clients, and colleagues with care is an important aspect of nursing practice, yet hectic and overwhelming work environments can sometimes make it difficult to find practical and realistic ways to express caring on a consistent basis. My research related to caring and mindfulness has shown that incorporating quick and simple mindfulness practices into brief moments throughout the day will support self-care, client care, and peer care, and lend new meaning and purpose to daily work and life.

I have created a FREE Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) to help nurses and other allied health professionals learn about caring through the lenses of Jean Watson’s Human Caring Science and Thich Nhat Hanh’s Mindfulness Practices. Anyone with access to the Internet can sign up for the course. To date, over 2,000 people from all over the world have accessed the course contents and participated in lively discussion boards where sharing about caring and mindfulness across disciplines, specialty areas, regions, and cultures takes place in a supported and vibrant global caring community. I hope you will join us! It is a low stress, fun, fascinating, and exciting way to re-energize and recommit to caring for yourself and for the world.

The course is offered in January and May of each year and the next session will begin January 9, 2017. Registration is open now. Go to canvas.net , search for “Caring Science, Mindful Practice” and enroll. It’s that easy.
[et_bloom_inline optin_id=optin_15]
This course provides tools for caring professionals to enhance professional caring practices in everyday work environments.  Learners will be introduced to Watson’s Caring Science. Exploration and learning related to key concepts will be supported through the introduction of mindfulness practice, reflective narrative, and contemplative art.  Asynchronous discussion, moderated by a team of educators knowledgeable in Caring Science, will provide a forum for ongoing interaction and discovery among participants during each 4-week class session. Certificates of completion will be earned by participants who complete 80% of the course content.

Caring Science, Mindful Practice MOOC Flyer

Upon completion of this course, learners will be able to:

  • Explain Watson’s 10 Caritas Processes.
  • Describe how mindfulness practice might be useful in supporting deepened understanding and practice of Caring Science.
  • Provide professional examples that illustrate Watson’s 10 Caritas
  • Provide professional examples that illustrate Transpersonal Caring Moments
  • Discuss how Watson’s Caritas Consciousness Touchstones for Cultivating Love might be useful in everyday professional caring practice.

Topical areas include:

  • Mindfulness and cultivating understanding of Watson’s Theory of Caring
  • Overview of Waton’s Theory
  • Thich Nhat Hanh’s 5 mindfulness trainings
  • Transpersonal Caring Moments
  • The 10 Caritas ProcessesTM
  • Caritas Consciousness Touchstones for Cultivating Love

This book compliments the course and is recommended but not required:

Sitzman, K., Watson, J. (2014). Caring Science, Mindful Practice. New York, New York: Springer Publishing.

Caring in the Digital World

Caring in the Digital World

by | Oct 10, 2016 | Blog, Career Advice, Technology | 0 comments

Jean Watson’s Theory of Human Caring asserts that caring and love transcend distance, space, time, and physicality, and it’s true. Feelings of love, kinship, friendship, grief, and compassion across time and distance confirm our basic shared experience of caring, regardless of physical and temporal boundaries. The rise of the Internet invites us to examine how deeply we believe in this transcendence and challenges us to create new ways of caring in this increasingly digital world.

Understanding and explaining caring in the digital world—especially what it looks like, how to do it, and the day to day ordinary consistency of living it is key to supporting an ongoing intention to care whether we can (or ever will) see, touch, or hear the beings with whom we interact. My research, which is based in Watson’s Human Caring Science, has confirmed that there are specific things nurses can do to effectively care for others at a distance:

  1. Respond to communications within 12-24 hours.
  2. Use carefully worded kindness such as;
    • “I appreciate hearing from you…”
    • “If I can be of further assistance please don’t hesitate to contact me.”
    • “Your concerns are important to me.”
    • Your note brightened my day…”
  3. Employ simple courtesy that includes your name and the name of the person you are contacting;
    • Start the communication with the name of the person you are trying to reach, for example, “Hello Mr. Santeria…” or “Hi Abby.”
    • End the communication with your full name so that it is easy for the receiver to determine who sent the message.
  4. Refer to specific information that is unique to the individual you are contacting, for example;
    • “I am interested in learning more about your concerns regarding your recent medication change…”
    • “Thank-you for clarifying your needs related to scheduling…”
    • “I really appreciate your words of acknowledgement and support…”
  5. Spell and grammar check each message before sending. A well-constructed and grammatically correct message communicates to the receiver that you value the exchange.

Establishing a firm intent to care, and then crafting messages carefully and with mindful attention to kindness will transform an impersonal communication into a collaborative caring opportunity. Understanding how to care in digital settings is critical to preserving the basic fabric of nursing we physically interact less while we electronically interact more with both patients and colleagues. We must all work together to envision and discover caring possibilities in the course of this inevitable change so that caring remains a core value in nursing and beyond. For more examples and ideas related to digital caring in nursing, read: Watson’s Caring in the Digital World: A Guide for Caring when Interacting, Teaching, and Learning in Cyberspace by Kathleen Sitzman and Jean Watson (2017), Springer Publishing.

[et_bloom_inline optin_id=optin_13]