On February 8th, Social Model Recovery Systems held its All-Agency Meeting with a Lunar New Year theme.
It was a successful event. Staff from different programs came together and shared important information that encouraged trust, strengthened the agency’s culture, and boosted team bonding.
The event started with the explanation of the theme, Lunar New Year Traditions, or what we call Chinese New Year. It is important to have a better understanding of different cultures in an organization or agency like SMRS. Culture is a broad term that encompasses beliefs, values, norms, behaviors, and overall can be understood as our “way of being.” When talking about cultural diversity in the workplace, it is not just recognizing different backgrounds or races but also different sexual orientations and different political views. Cultural diversity in the workplace is important for the health and well-being of companies and employees.
The event continued with the explanation of the “introduction activity” by our Chief Operating Officer, Mr. Tim Stevens. The activity was for each person to write their names on a piece of paper, years they’ve been working at the agency, and answer the question “what would they change in the world”, then pass note to person to the left. The person to the left introduced the person on their right to those at the table.
After the small group activity, we proceeded to the “Trauma Informed Care” training presented by our Director of Training and Education, Denise Felice and by our Director of Innovation, Dr. Anna Lee.
The training gave us more education on how to handle our participants with a in different approach. Instead of asking, “What’s wrong with you?”, we should ask, “What happened to you?” A trauma-informed approach to care acknowledges that healthcare organizations and care teams need to have a complete picture of a participant’s life situation — past and present — to provide effective healthcare services with a healing orientation. This training also helped everyone realized that even non-clinical staff, such as front desk workers, our maintenance team, and admin assistants, often have significant interactions with participants and can be critical to ensuring that they feel safe. The training was very helpful in that it made everyone realize that each one has an important role and can make an impact on our participants.
It was a fun event full of laughter and the exchanging of thoughts and information between the management team and staff.
Everyone had the opportunity to interact with colleagues from other programs, to participate in the activity, and to express their feedback and voice their concerns.
