Developing the Digital Stories and Compassion Indicators

Catherine Theodosius & Elona Hoover

Research Process

Aim: To generate digital stories that represent compassion narratives

and identify compassion based value indicators from the healthcare

workforce to contribute to the toolkit.

Appreciative Inquiry Principles

Story telling Focus Groups

Indicator Focus Groups

Digital Compassion Stories

Digital compassion stories: are compassion narratives based on personal and group experiences and constructed into audio narrated stories illustrated by still images and sound created and edited into digital entities using media technology that can be electronically played and viewed.

Storytelling Focus Groups

Two storytelling focus groups were carried out in each of three of the four partner organisations:

Based on the 7 key steps of storytelling (Joe Lambert)

Discussions about compassion and compassionate practice

Storytelling Games

Developing the story

Compassion indicator development: stage one

Development & Production of Stories

Storyboarding

research team

Participant

Ethical Issues – Anonymity, emotional content, symbolism in pictures

Quality of Pictures

Mock Up Photos – taken by Laurence Leng

Voiceovers – used actors

Adobe Photoshop

supported by Felix Gonzales & Craig Wakefield

RESULTS

Stories with many meanings

Drawn directly from practice

https://cultivatingcompassionatecare.wordpress.com/digital-stories/

‘We could have been Friends’

Responses

“. It was brilliant. Loved the digital stories we... myself... the person who’s on the group and then another leadership head, a doctor, we took a group each and we discussed why people aren’t compassionate, we showed the digital story, the one... “she could be my friend”... the doctors find particularly powerful. And then we talked about that and then we also... because they liked that so much we also showed the one of the radiography person who took someone out for a cigarette [ a spoonful of sugar], and we also talked about that, what puts people off being compassionate and things like that”.

Indicator Focus Groups

Listening to compassion stories in storytelling focus groups

Data analysis to generate compassion indicators

Participants review and amend

Expert input from project steering group

Feedback from practitioners on use

Further refinement …

Using the indicators…some ideas

• Choose an indicator and use it as a starting point for discussion, challenging practice;

Is this indicator ‘achievable / unachievable’ or ‘something that we are doing well/ needs improving’;

• Select a theme and reflect in groups of 2/3

• Integrate into reflective practice (e.g. a focus for a monthly session for example);

• Focus on for a given period and get people’s views on how it is being lived in practice;

• Use in the context of appraisals or supervision

or…

Using the indicators…examples

“It was brilliant! They loved the digital stories…. loved the indicators, and then we said at the end we want you to do a

pledge but you don’t have to tell us now and then they told us. They were so excited about it”

“ I love the fact that there are too many. I love the fact that you can just choose”

Using the indicators…challenges

“the first time we trained the trainers we used all 70 indicators , there were too many so we now do a theme”

“Oh I haven’t used them yet as they would take a bit longer. Its about timing. I mean I have mentor updates. If I had the time. I

only have two hours”

Insights from using the indicators Challenges:

Selecting from large set

Indicators are ‘de-contextualised’

‘Re-contextualising’ them takes time, and thought

This can be difficult in the context of practice

Guiding this process needs facilitation, and group dynamics are important

Insights from using the indicators Being compassionate looks different for different people

Not everyone has to show compassion in the same way, or to the same extent

Indicators can provide new perspectives…

…and can help us challenge our practice: is this ‘achievable, something that needs improving?’

Please feel free to contact us if you have any comments or questions:

E.Hoover@brighton.ac.uk

G.L.Burford@brighton.ac.uk