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Rest and recover bingo card

It’s bingo, but not as we know it. The team at The Orange Door chose to focus on the health of staff as a way to address wellbeing. They introduced a bingo card to encourage regular movement and implemented it through a meeting designed specifically for self-care and team building.

Renae Axton, Team Leader, The Orange Door, Mildura

The Orange Door is an Australian-first model that brings together workers from specialist family violence, child and family, Aboriginal and men’s services to provide an integrated response to family violence and the wellbeing of children and young people.

The Orange Door provides services to people experiencing and using family violence and needing family support. This includes risk and needs assessment, safety planning and crisis supports, as well as connecting people to a broad range of services for ongoing support.

The team has 16 staff across three locations which presents its own challenges. They decided they wanted to focus on the health aspect of the PERMAH wellbeing model.

‘We have so many time pressures and are pretty much desk-bound,’ says Renae. ‘We really wanted to get people up and moving away from their desks, so that they weren't just sitting there constantly, bogged down in work. The challenge was to create a resource that was small and easy to implement that could provide wellbeing nudges along the way.’

Using their monthly ‘Power Hour’, a meeting designated for self-care and team building, the team realised that people had their own preferences for wellbeing practices – so a one-size-fits-all approach was not going to work. And so together they created the ‘Rest and recover bingo card’.

The card works as follows:

  • It is filled with a variety of 5-minute activities that encourage people to get up from their desks and take a break. For example: step out into the sunshine, share a laugh with a colleague, or climb the stairs.
  • People are encouraged to mark off activities on the card throughout the week.
  • Anyone who fills their card in a week wins a coffee!

‘It’s worked well with our team. It’s something little that contributes to the daily lives of everyone, and we've found that people are a whole lot more productive (because of the breaks)…’ ’ explained Renae. ‘It will now be used across our workplace.’

As a team leader, Renae has found modelling self-care has been a crucial part of this process. ‘As leaders, we focused a lot on ensuring our self-care was being considered. That way we could feed it out to the rest of the team.'

In summing up the experience, Renae provided a quote by Jackie Viramontez: ’Self-care is not a waste of time; self-care makes your use of time more sustainable.’

To find out more about setting up and using a Rest and Recover Bingo Card please watch this short video:

FamilyViolence Health, Safety and Wellbeing Pilot Program showcase - MASP
View transcript

Bingo card description

Complete your bingo card each week to ensure you are getting enough rest and recovery.

  • 5-minute meditation
  • Music moment
  • Essential oils moment
  • Walk around the block
  • Dad jokes
  • Dance
  • Breathe
  • 5 minutes of sunshine
  • Chair yoga
  • Time with office pet
  • Meme moment
  • Stair climbing
  • Share something in common with someone
  • Tea with colleague
  • 2.5 litres of water
  • Reflect on what went well this week
  • Share a laugh with a colleague
  • Ask someone, ‘Are you ok?’
  • Brain food 3 times this week
  • Pleasure reading 5 min
  • Somatic practice
  • Intentionally step away from desk for 5 min
  • Positive affirmation
  • 5 minutes of sunshine
  • Exercise
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