Abstract
Workshop – Background
The Compassionate Community movement empowers members of a city or community to create a supportive environment for its caregivers, those dealing with serious illness, dying, and grieving. This movement acknowledges that care for one another is not only the responsibility of health and social services but is everyone's business.
Workshop - Aims and Objectives
This workshop aims to showcase the Compassionate Community movement as an example of a bottom-up community-led initiative focused on improving the health of citizens and how to support those leading the movement to increase the initiative's sustainability. Participants will learn about the best practices to increase sustainability, resources to help them achieve these best practices and an opportunity to engage with key tools. Additionally, participants will learn how organizations can play a role by sharing Pallium Canada's national approach to support the work at the community level.
Workshop - Target audience
The ideal audience for this workshop will be someone interested in starting a Compassionate Community initiative, someone leading an initiative, and organizations interested in supporting those leading the work.
Workshop - Format
The workshop will introduce the Compassionate Community movement and how this bottom-up approach is an example of a citizen-led initiative to improve health (10 minutes). Next, share learnings from the last six years and how Pallium uses this knowledge to guide its approach to catalyzing the movement (15 minutes). Then participants will learn about resources designed to support those leading the work, specifically, the Compassionate Communities Sustainability Guide. This guide compiles the best practices needed to increase the initiative's sustainability and tools to achieve these best practices. During this section, participants will engage with some of these tools (45 minutes).
Workshop - Key Learnings/Take away
Participants will take away the following:
• Review the Compassionate Community movement
• Show how the Compassionate Community movement is an example of a citizen-led initiative to improve health.
• Showcase the best practices and tools to strengthen a Compassionate Community initiative
• Review how an organization can support community-led initiatives.