Compassion Collaborative

In 2021, the CEIH part­nered with Mary Freer of Freer Think­ing to cre­ate the South Aus­tralian Com­pas­sion Col­lab­o­ra­tive. The Com­pas­sion Col­lab­o­ra­tive was an online, facil­i­tat­ed envi­ron­ment that brought togeth­er peo­ple from across the South Aus­tralian Health Sec­tor to learn about, pro­mote and sup­port com­pas­sion­ate cul­tures and prac­tices. It arose as a response, an anti­dote, to the often demand­ing and stress­ful sit­u­a­tions that those who work in Health in SA were expe­ri­enc­ing dur­ing the Pandemic. 

Col­lab­o­ra­tive mem­bers met for­mal­ly once per month as a com­mu­ni­ty invest­ed in build­ing skills in, and aware­ness of, com­pas­sion­ate lis­ten­ing, com­pas­sion­ate speech, com­pas­sion­ate action and self-com­pas­sion­ate prac­tices in the work­place. Mem­bers shared what they were imple­ment­ing in their work­place, what worked, what didn’t, to build com­pas­sion­ate cultures.

The SA Com­pas­sion Col­lab­o­ra­tive held their final meet­ing in March 2022. Feed­back from mem­bers indi­cates that their under­stand­ing of com­pas­sion, of com­pas­sion­ate action and their skills in work­ing com­pas­sion­ate­ly and prac­tic­ing self-com­pas­sion were all enriched dur­ing their time with the Collaborative. 

The CEIH con­tin­ues work to strength­en and sup­port the health and well­be­ing of South Australia’s health­care work­force. Read more about our work on Strength­en­ing Work­place Wellbeing.