A Narrative Inquiry into the Practices of Healthcare Workers’ Wellness Program: The SEED Experience in New South Wales, Australia

Abstract

The 2019–2020 Australian bushfires followed by the COVID-19 pandemic brought the significant mental health implications of working in healthcare to the fore. The importance of appropriate support services to ensure the resilience and recovery of healthcare workers has been highlighted. In response to healthcare staff experiences during the bushfires, the SEED Wellness Program was created in 2020 in the Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District in New South Wales, Australia. SEED used a participant-led design to engage healthcare staff in workplace-based restorative activities. Guided by practice theory, this study aimed to identify and describe SEED wellness practices that supported healthcare staff. Thirty-three healthcare workers participated in focus groups or individual interviews between June 2021 and March 2022. The analysis involved inductive thematic individual and collective exploration of SEED practices, including co-analysis with participants. Eight core practices that supported participants’ wellbeing were identified, including responsive and compassionate leading, engaging staff at every stage of the recovery process, creating a sense of connection with others, and collective caring. The study found that workplace wellness initiatives are optimised when they are place-based and grounded in local knowledge, needs, and resources incorporating a collective and supportive team approach. Moreover, to ensure engagement in, and sustainability of these initiatives, both bottom-up and top-down commitment is required.

The SEED Team journey: A phenomenological study of a multidisciplinary healthcare team's experience using the new creative tool ‘photovoice’ for critical reflection.

“…Participants involved in the SEED Program since its beginning identified eight SEED practices. These practices strongly focus on responsive and compassionate leadership, which has been a success of the SEED model (Olcon et al 2022) The SEED Team met with the ISLHD CE, who asked each team member to discuss their work. One team member introduced the CE to photovoice and gave the example of their photovoice from that morning, a picture of a rainbow (Figure 3).…”

“…SEED Practice 5 is 'connecting with others'. Having deep authentic connection with others can lead to conversations with colleagues that are not always work related (Olcon et al 2022).…”

“…Reflection is linked to SEED Practice 6, 'collective caring'. A sense of responsibility for the wellbeing of others produces a work culture where colleagues strive to help each other to be well (Olcon et al 2022). Creating a safe space and a sense of connection among staff showed they were more likely to be kind, respect each other, care for each other authentically and put people before processes.…”

“…The SEED Program's success in 2019 led to further interest and investment from the ISLHD Chief Executive (CE) and the NSW Health Chief Experience Officer to support the development of a new SEED Team. A narrative inquiry into the practices of healthcare workers who had experienced the SEED Program identified eight wellness practices that supported healthcare workers (Olcon et al 2022):…”

Characteristics of Collective Resilience and Its Influencing Factors from the Perspective of Psychological Emotion: A Case Study of COVID-19 in China

“…The huge impact of COVID-19 required considerable adaptations of healthcare workers. Scholars have therefore focused their research on this particular group, suggesting that engaging staff at every stage, creating a sense of connection with others, collective humanistic care, social support, team unity, and realizing their self-worth with a sense of sacred mission all contributed to the adaptation and recovery of the healthcare community during the pandemic [ 34 , 35 ]. However, fragmented guidance and communication, a sense of unfairness generated by relational challenges, uncertainty over safety, and variable referral quality caused them to feel undervalued and frustrated, thereby exerting a negative impact on their psychological adaptation and recovery [ 36 ].…”