Neighbor News
Caring for Our Caregivers Donates to San Quentin Healthcare Staff
The wellness rooms, donated by the nonprofit program led by Sufi Psychology Association, provide healthcare staff a dedicated space.
In direct response to the strain placed upon healthcare workers during the pandemic, particularly at San Quentin State Prison, Caring for Our Caregivers has donated two wellness rooms and an entire wellness program to dedicated healthcare staff at the institution. Research shows that burnout rates are surging throughout the community, which can result in physical and emotional concerns for those on the frontlines, and also makes them more susceptible to mistakes or missteps during patient care. The wellness rooms provide the staff tools needed to destress, including thoughtfully-altered lighting, music, electronics preloaded with meditations, visualizations and other helpful videos, stress balls, puzzles and more.
“When someone is under a tremendous amount of stress and may be experiencing ongoing trauma such as these dedicated professionals, we need to offer an outlet to distract them in a productive, calming way,” said Saloumeh Bozorgzadeh, PsyD., President of Sufi Psychology Association. “Only once the trauma of a situation is over can we reflect on it and work to move past it. As these healthcare workers are still fighting day after day, these rooms will offer them the much-needed opportunity to decompress and effectively manage their stress the right way, decreasing the effects of burnout.”
As the meditation sessions, visualizations and other tools are downloaded onto the tablets and available at any time, the staff will have the opportunity to enjoy and utilize these tools at their leisure - helpful in a time when schedules are anything but regular. The rooms will be sanitized and the institution has set guidelines to ensure safe use for the staff.
In addition to the wellness rooms donated, Caring for Our Caregivers will also be providing these heroes an entire wellness program consisting of meditation and wellness workshops led by professionals in the field. Directed at decreasing stress for these healthcare workers long term, each workshop will be streamed online and will be targeted at different components of health and wellness. Among the workshops, healthcare workers will have access to sessions focused on creating positive sleep habits, managing anxiety, communicating effectively, navigating different roles, facing fear, and more.
“We are truly grateful for the wellness rooms and resources that Caring for Our Caregivers is providing,” said Dr. Jenny Espinoza, Special Assignment Chief Physician and Surgeon at San Quentin State Prison, Chief Physician and Surgeon at CCHCS Headquarters. “This unprecedented crisis was overwhelming and traumatic for many of our team members, and staff are just starting to come to terms with what they have individually and collectively experienced. Since we are not working in a hospital or community setting, it’s difficult for the general public to really get a sense of the contributions and sacrifices that prison healthcare staff are making every day caring for patients during the pandemic, under some of the most challenging circumstances. In addition to the wellness rooms and resources that Caring for Our Caregivers is providing, this acknowledgement and support from the outside community is especially meaningful at this time.”
Caring for Our Caregivers is a volunteer-run and donation-driven initiative launched in response to the real and rigorous toll the COVID-19 pandemic has taken on healthcare workers. Providing frontline heroes around the world with wellness and relaxation resources via videos preloaded onto donated tablets, the initiative has resulted in 537 donated tablets and 18,000 headsets among 166 hospitals to more than 17,000 healthcare heroes across the globe to date, spanning four countries and 26 states in the U.S. Diligently working to expand their reach as the pandemic continues on, the SPA delivers tablets with a preloaded Sufi meditation and mental health videos to doctors, nurses, therapists and other medical professionals internationally in an effort to offer frontline heroes the opportunity and resources to decompress and take care of themselves during an extremely challenging time.
The Sufi Psychology Association also hosts workshops both in-person and online for those interested, along with educational retreats, and Tamarkoz® classes for credit. For more information on the Caring for Our Caregivers initiative, please visit www.caring4ourcaregivers.org or for more information on Sufi Psychology Association, please visit www.sufipsychology.org.
