0:00 Paige: Great. Can you all see my screen?
[On-screen text: Junction Support Services
Caring for Wellbeing
Presentation by Paige]
0:05 Kirsten: Yes.
0:07 Paige: Amazing. So yeah, my name's Paige. I am the children's services team manager at Junction Support. Today, I'm lucky enough to be speaking on behalf of the leadership team here,
who includes Megan Pierce and Colleen Crisp. Colleen has really taken on this process as a bit of a passion project and has really gotten a lot out of it, but she is off on holiday, earning lots of wellbeing points, having a wonderful time. So, I hope I can do it justice for her today.
0:45 Paige: Before I get started, I would like to take a moment just to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land of the Wurundjeri people in which I work on and live on and recognise that continuing connection to the land and water and community and pay my respects to elders past, present, and emerging and welcome any Aboriginal people joining us today.
1:13 Paige: So, Junctions has been really lucky to participate in the health, safety and wellbeing pilot. Junction Support Services started off really small in 1989 with one person and one program in Wangaratta. Today, Junction is growing by the minute. We currently have over 36 programs that offer support across Victoria with offices in Wodonga, Wangaratta, Shepparton, and Gippsland. Our team specifically works with children, adults, and families as a whole to provide counselling, therapeutic supports for people who have experienced homelessness, family violence, or are requiring some early intervention parenting support. So, it's been a really interesting journey for the leadership team in learning about where everyone is at in terms of their wellbeing, and I think it's also been a really interesting journey for our staff as a whole.
2:24 Kirsten: Sorry.
2:28 Paige: So today I'll just be kind of covering the process that we took as a team to identify and understand so that we're able to develop what wellbeing meant for us and what we would like it to look like moving forward.
[On-screen text: Today’s Discussion
Topic to Cover
Individual Wellbeing
Barriers to Wellbeing
Measuring our Wellbeing
Wellbeing in Practice: Our Monthly Calendar
Wellbeing in Practice: The Future
Wellbeing in Practice: A Leaders Role]
2:47 Paige: So, at the start of the process, it was about identifying as individuals what wellbeing meant. Everyone acknowledged that wellbeing means different things for different people at different times, recognising that depending on what's happening that can change and it's an ever-moving beast. The team were asked in an anonymous survey what wellbeing meant for them, and we've got a few examples up here on the screen. So yeah, obviously people were in a range of different spaces where some were struggling and some were really able to identify, I guess, what they needed for that wellbeing to happen for them.
[On-Screen text: What is wellbeing? It means different things to different people.
Constant work in process
An uphill battle
Calm
Family
Taking care of self
Purpose
Spirituality
Work-life balance
Struggling
Health
Mindfulness
Rest
Relaxing
Healthy
Vitality
Balance
Slow down
Social wellbeing
Outdoors
Mental health
Holistic health]
3:45 Paige: So, we then decided to unpack what some of the barriers were for us practising wellbeing, and we're able to come up with our five top barriers, which was high of work demands and lack of balance, other people, money, time, and fatigue or low energy.
4:09 Paige: So, from hearing the other presentations today, I don't think that that's a surprise to anyone in this sector that we work in, that our work demands, and client demands are often very high, which makes it very difficult for us to prioritise our own wellbeing whilst we’re providing this support to other people.
[On-Screen text: Barriers to Wellbeing
Work demands and lack of balance
Other people
Money
Time
Fatigue/low energy]
4:34 Paige: So next, when we measured wellbeing within our team, over 50% of the team were above the thriving line. However, 45% of the team were below this line. This measurement gave us targets to focus on with the goal to move those members of the team who were below the thriving line up and increase their wellbeing to be above the line.
[On-Screen text: Measuring Our Wellbeing
High Thriving, Low Thriving (Top to Bottom)
High Struggle, Low Struggle (Left to Right)
Living Well Despite Struggles 27.1% (Top left)
Consistently Thriving 27.1% (Top right)
Really Struggling 11.9% (Bottom left)
Not Feeling Bad, Just Getting By 33.9% (bottom right)]
5:10 Paige: The area calling out for our attention the most was health within our team and our organisation as a whole. However, we were also able to identify some consistent strengths across relationship and meaning. So, we wanted to draw upon these to build on our health, just to utilise our strengths to support the growth in the areas that we needed to work on.
[On-screen text: Measuring Our Wellbeing
PERMAH Wellbeing Factors chart
Top left to right in order – Positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, accomplishment, health
Second row left to right in order – your individual average, 65, 67, 81, 77, 67, 65 – 65 Health encircled, Health became a priority.
Third row left to right in order – Population individual average 69, 68, 72, 71, 72, 69.
Fourth row left to right in order – Your Team Average 79, 81, 83, 87, 72, 60 – 60 Health encircled, Within our team & across our organisation.
Fifth row left to right in order – Population Team Average 70, 69, 70, 72, 69, 63.
Sixth row left to right in order – Your Organisation Average 75, 78, 73, 88, 72, 56 – 56 Health encircled, what strengths could we draw on to support? Relationships & Meaning.
Final row left to right in order – Population Organisation Average 70, 68, 70, 69, 69, 65]
5:42 Paige: So, as a team, we then identified the three areas we wanted to improve on. So, they were movement, drinking more water, and taking breaks. It sounds like three easy things; however, I think we've all recognised today that it is quite challenging to make sure that we're doing those things. Often, we start something, and you look up and it's three o'clock in the afternoon and you've been stuck on a phone or at your desk all day.
[On-screen text: Understanding Health: Our Context
Stay Active: Movement
Stay Hydrated: Drink More Water
Take Breaks]
6:16 Paige: So, we wanted to explore a way that we could support the team to implement these practises in a way that would be easy for them to read, easy for them to access during busy work schedules. And the calendar model has provided that flexible proforma that can be adjusted and easily accessed for our team. The team has found the calendar really useful so far. It's currently displayed throughout our room as well as they identified that maybe having a soft copy and some reminders in their electronic calendar would be helpful, especially when our team is spread across a few different offices. The team had reported that when they do get caught up, they were often forgetting to look at the calendar. So that's provided that reminder or reminded somebody within the team to generate that conversation. The team have also identified that even though we’ve got these great specific day reminders, that the calendar is really providing a variety of different things. So, if mindful Mondays isn't where you're at on a Monday and maybe a Wednesday walk might be more suitable, then we can change things up if we need to, which has been really great. So, this has kind of resulted in the calendar being utilised as more of
a prompt to engage in wellbeing rather than a specific activity.
[On-screen text: 2023 June Junction Support Services Calendar]
8:05 Paige: A significant part of our process was actually at the end where we were able to participate in a single session focusing on self-compassion. I'm hearing that that is a consistent theme throughout a lot of organisations. So, we're able to identify throughout the process that our team were at times being really judgmental and critical of themselves. The single session really allowed us to focus on the importance of being present and practising self-compassion and how it can help us professionally and personally. For some of our team members, it was really confronting, but it provided the opportunity for us to reflect on why all of this is really important, and that if we can do more to care for ourselves, then we're going to be offering our clients and our colleagues the best versions of ourselves. So, it's something that we need to prioritise.
[On-screen text: Self-Compassion Session: In Response to the PERMAH Survey]
9:13 Paige: So, moving forward, as a management team, we're hoping to continue to foster positive wellbeing within our team. We're hoping to implement this model as a complete model, and I think I'm going to be stealing a few of your ideas as well to support staff and strategies that work for them and maintain themselves in this line of work. We'll encourage and remind staff to engage in the timetable by continuing with the calendar reminders and create opportunities each day for them to engage in this wellbeing. We'll also continue to lead activities that we already had in place, like crazy fact Wednesdays, icebreakers at the start of sessions, and obviously regular supervision and team bonding opportunities. We'll continue to add our model of care with new ideas that we come up with, so it continues to be flexible and meeting individual and team needs. Wellbeing is now a standing agenda, and our model is a standing agenda item on our monthly team meetings where we discuss things that have worked for us and things that we might want to add. Continuing to support opportunities to develop and maintain the relationships within the team is also something that where we're hoping to continue or that we will be continuing so that it continues to be embedded in our culture.
11:01 Paige: And so yeah, just to, I guess sum it up, during the process we've learned a lot. There's been some struggles along the way. The online component was at times challenging with lots of staff logging in the same room. It was a little bit tricky, and I think that we're all experiencing a bit of online fatigue after being experiencing it for the last three years. So that was a little bit tricky at times, and I think we would've liked for it to go a little bit longer. Having some more single sessions would've been amazing. The team really identified that taking the time to focus on those topics has really provided that reflection space and an opportunity to learn.
[On-screen text: As leaders, we have a responsibility when it comes to caring for wellbeing…to our teams and to ourselves.]
11:57 Kirsten: Thank you so much, Paige. That's amazing. Really great reflections and really fantastic opportunity to see what you came up with. But I love the fact that you came up with a tool, but what it turned out was people just genuinely needing prompts, right? Because when you look at any type of habit formation, the science of habit, I've read several habit books. They start with a prompt. You need a prompt.
So, if you want to exercise in the morning, put your running shoes out at the end of your bed.
12:31 Paige: Exactly.
12:32 Kirsten: Yeah. So having little prompts around the office and in the calendar genuinely encourages people to do things and I love the point that you made about if we can care for ourselves, we're better able to service our clients and our colleagues and show them the best version. I think that's a really great take home. So, congratulations, Paige. Well done. Thank you.
Any comments or feedback, please pop it into the chat. I can see them coming through. Great presentation. Love the calendar, all really practical tools. So, thank you everyone.
[End of transcript]
Updated