Values in Healthcare: a spiritual approach
A personal and team development programme for healthcare practitioners

Thrive and survive?
With today's emphasis on quality of service, how can healthcare professionals deliver the best possible care to patients and, at the same time, feel enriched and supported by their work? How can they thrive, rather than just survive?

Values in Healthcare: a spiritual approach is a modular training package developed and produced by a core team of health professionals for those involved in healthcare delivery. Values in Healthcare addresses an important gap in personal and team development for healthcare professionals by taking a fresh, values-based approach to their learning and practice.

Values in a pack?
One of the keys to raising morale in healthcare today is to re-emphasise the importance of values in guiding practice at all levels. There are some excellent values statements produced by health care organisations, but for values to be meaningful, they must be owned at a personal level and then integrated into our work.

Values in Healthcare is a modular training and development programme, consisting of seven modules which explores individual values in depth and how they relate to our personal lives and professional practice. Each module takes one day to complete and utilises a unique blend of experiential group exercises, with time set aside for personal reflection and discussion.

Self-enquiry is encouraged so that healthcare practitioners and teams can identify their own values and discover how their insights can enhance their personal lives and revitalise their work. Movement-based exercises offer natural breaks and opportunities to experience values in a personal way.

The programme is available as a resource and training pack.
The themes are:
Module 1: Values
Inner values / Values at work
Module 2: Peace
Being peaceful / Peace at work
Module 3: Positivity
Being positive / Positive interaction at work
Module 4: Compassion
Finding compassion / Compassion in practice
Module 5: Co-operation
Understanding co-operation / Working in teams
Module 6: Valuing yourself
Self-care / Support at work
Module 7: Spirituality in healthcare
Exploring spirituality and healing / Spiritual care in practice

Key principles
Traditionally, healthcare professionals’ training has been predominantly about acquiring knowledge and learning practical skills, with less time spent on communication and interpersonal skills, and even less time, if any, on self-care.

Values in Healthcare uses a fresh creative approach, with an emphasis on self-care and support. Three key principles have been adopted to support this training approach:

1) Physician heal thyself
Professional care givers are placed at the centre of healthcare delivery; self-care is therefore integral to good patient care. If care givers nourish and support themselves and pay attention to personal development, their morale improves and the sense of purpose and altruism with which they set out in their careers, is restored.

2) Learning through experience
Values in healthcare are best understood and explored through direct experience, so the programme provides facilitated, experiential learning, rather than didactic instruction, with time for silence, visualisation and sharing in a supportive environment.

3) Relevance to work
The learning experience should be relevant to participants’ work and lives; there is therefore an emphasis on reflection, action planning and evaluation, and a commitment to ongoing learning.

The programme includes learning outcomes for each exercise which indicate how professionals can improve their coping skills, raise morale and restore a sense of purpose, helping to prevent problems of burnout, sickness absence, and staff retention.