Mindfulness for resilience – a self-care strategy for staff working with vulnerable people.

Mindfulness is an approach to living well, a way of intentionally engaging with the moment with openness & curiosity, & a developmental skill. Cultivating mindfulness helps a person respond to a situation with consideration & creativity, rather than emotion & reactivity. Regular mindfulness practice can help regulate emotional states, enhance self-awareness & increase well-being. This paper describes a pilot project undertaken with staff mostly working in palliative care, but also in other high-stress environments of youth homelessness, unemployment, family support & disability. Two programmes delivered a modified Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction programme tailored to workplace needs. Training sessions over eight weeks aimed to: increase participants’ awareness of habitual mind states & automatic behaviours; assist in practising a range of mindfulness exercises; & embed new habits of mind for taking care of themselves in the workplace & beyond. Following completion of the programme a questionnaire was distributed to participants, comprising structured questions using a five-point Likert scale, as well as open-ended questions for detailed feedback. The results were manually analysed both for descriptive statistics & dominant themes, which are reported as: impact on personal life; management of work; & approaches to work. This training programme has now been incorporated into the regular training calendar & as part of the in-house management training programme.