Rose Durey, Manager Programs and Strategy, Women’s Health Grampians
Much of the work of Women’s Health Grampians is long-term primary prevention that focuses on improving gender equality and shifting gendered social norms.
While this work has the largest impact on ending men’s violence against women, it comes with its own unique set of challenges. It takes time and commitment, and it requires organisations to work together towards a vision of safety and respect.
‘Due to our upstream work, focusing on education and prevention rather than direct service delivery, we’re often not seeing our impact in real-time, but our staff, and those we work with, are all committed to creating a more equal world,’ Rose explained.
After using the PERMAH Wellbeing Survey, Rose found that while her team had a positive organisational culture, there were relatively high levels of self-judgment and relatively low levels of self-compassion at the individual level.
‘We reflected on this as a team,’ said Rose, ‘and it was clear, as a female-dominated workforce, that self-promotion and celebrating one’s own individual achievements did not come easily.'
So together they developed the ‘Accomplishment check-in’: a resource that prompts staff to notice and celebrate their everyday wins and the impact they have along the way to the organisation’s longer-term goals. The resource works by:
- encouraging team members to take notice of achievements, contributions and milestones, however small, within themselves and their team
- using an ‘Accomplishment check-in’ to describe their work – for example, ‘I accomplished … and the impact was …’
- giving the team permission to highlight negative self-talk, to encourage reflections of achievement.
Knowing that the best change is embedded in a culture’s existing rituals and routines, the team was encouraged to use the resource in self-reflection, team discussions, as well as incorporating it into existing supervision. Naturally, each person had unique reflections depending on their context and role, and these have been celebrated.
While the formal practices continue to be embedded into team and supervision, Rose noted that it has been a useful tool for a team that is performing well but needed a morale boost.
‘It’s also beneficial for teams that are doing long-term work in primary prevention’, she said. Women’s Health Grampians has begun to make real shifts in the ways people perceive their accomplishments and contributions to the organisation’s broader mission each day.
To find out more about setting up and using an ‘Accomplishment check-in’, please watch this short video:
| What | Accomplishment check-In |
|---|---|
| Why | The check-in helps cultivate an organisational culture that recognises how a sense of accomplishment contributes to our wellbeing. The nature of family violence primary prevention work means initiatives are longer-term, whole-of-population approaches that may seem difficult to achieve but have the potential to have the largest impact towards ending men’s violence against women before it occurs. This resource provides an opportunity to notice and celebrate the wins, the accomplishment and the impact we are having along the way to these longer-term goals. To promote the health and wellbeing of teams working in primary prevention, the check-in seeks to balance out the focus on challenges, setbacks and any sense of being overwhelmed by ongoing societal issues related to family violence and gender inequality. We are mindful that working within a female-dominated workforce, self-promotion and celebrating one’s own individual achievement may not be a strength. This resource seeks to challenge social norms by creating space to celebrate our achievements at work. |
| Who | This activity can be used by staff at all levels for self and team reflection. We believe this is useful for those where the impact of their work may not be felt for many years. It is also useful for teams that are performing well but wish to boost their sense of accomplishment across a team or organisation. |
| How | We will prioritise our sense of accomplishment by:
|
| When | This activity can be used at any time when providing work or project updates for individuals and within teams. For example, by acknowledging the work and contributions of team members within a team meeting or incorporating this into supervision as a way of pausing to reflect on the positive impact of our work, however small. |
| Where | For the greatest impact to wellbeing this activity will be used for self-reflection (Me Level) and within teams (We Level) by embedding the Accomplishment Check-in to supervision and team meeting agendas and internal communications. |
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