A team of one hundred volunteers, ages 16 to 86 visit patients in hospitals and nursing homes, every week, all year round.
A board of directors, committee members, advisors, and auxiliary volunteers also work behind the scenes to move the mission forward.
If you live in the Santa Barbara area, you have probably seen someone in a red wig and striped socks walking into one of the local hospitals or nursing homes. Volunteer visitors dressed as Raggedy Ann and Andy have been a feature of health care in Santa Barbara for more than twenty years.
What you may not know is that under the wig and the makeup is a highly skilled listener with special training in how to interact with patients to promote healing, recovery and emotional well-being.
While Raggedy volunteers come from all walks of life, many of them are pre-med and pre-health profession students from UCSB and other local colleges. In a three-day training session provided by Adventures in Caring, these future doctors, dentists, nurses and health care practitioners learn how to communicate and focus on the patient’s interests, letting the patient be the center of attention. They also learn how to understand emotional needs and appreciate abilities rather than disabilities.
[See "Volunteer"]
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• A Guide to Visiting Friends and Family Who are Ill. Now in its third edition, 15,000 copies of this book have been distributed. [Link to book]
• : How to Communicate in Ways that Ease the Pain and Lift the Spirit. 5,000 organizations throughout the United States now use this video to educate their volunteer caregivers. [Link to video]
• Core Skills for the Human Side of Health Care. This award-winning video is used to instruct young health care professionals. It shows how four key elements of compassion can be extended to patients in timely, practical ways as a natural part of every day's work. [Link to video]
• Being Effective in Emotionally Difficult Conversations. For health care professionals and volunteer caregivers. This new video shows how to turn difficult conversations into learning conversations, identify three layers of a tense conversation, and recognize the choice points when conversations can turn around. [Link to video]
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Compassion is fundamental to any healthy, sustainable community. It is the magnetism that holds people, families, and communities together. Simple kindness, common decency, healthy relationships, and civic engagement – are all based on compassion. Without compassion selfishness prevails, goodwill decays, suffering crushes the soul, and a community degenerates into a war-zone. Compassion is often given lip service and taken for granted, but rarely is it deliberately cultivated. [See "How to Help"]
Adventures in Caring serves all people, and all families, regardless of their illness or injury, age, gender, income, race, or religion.
At first glance, most people think that the Raggedy Ann & Andy program is just for children – yet it has proven effective with patients of all ages, in acute care, rehabilitation and convalescent hospitals. Raggedys give support not only to the patients, but also to the families and staff who care for them.
At present Raggedys visit twenty-eight hospitals and nursing homes every week all year round, primarily in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties. However, Raggedys also visit the sick in four other states.
[See "The Raggedy Ann & Andy Program"]
There is no pill for loneliness. In the darkest hours of illness or injury, the medicine that lifts the spirit, is compassion.
As Mother Teresa of Calcutta said, “The greatest pain on Earth is not the pain of hunger or poverty, but rather the pain of isolation, abandonment and feeling unloved.” The solution is human contact, with someone who cares and who listens.
As many as eighty percent of patients in nursing homes have no visitors at all. In hospitals up to thirty percent of the patients can be from out of town, and for numerous other reasons, families or friends are often unable to visit.
A serious illness forces us to come to terms with issues that we would rather not think about. Patients in hospitals and nursing homes often have no one to talk to about such issues; no one to listen to their hopes and fears.
The Adventures in Caring Visiting Programs meet this need with a good listener and a friendly face at the patient’s bedside.
[See "The AiC Vision]
All Adventures in Caring volunteers learn how to communicate with people who are seriously ill. They skillfully deliver four life-affirming gifts that all patients, and their families, need:
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noticing the signs, signals and clues that indicate what is most important to the patient or their family – so that they feel heard.
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letting patients and family members know that they are appreciated as unique individuals – so that they feel respected.
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extending the human touch of warmth, comfort, humor and kindness – so that patients feel connected with the people in who’s care they place their lives.
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accepting people as they are – so that patients feel safe to make new choices, and to participate in their healing process
Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy are non-threatening, well-loved, and easily recognized. They are safe: they don’t hurt or deliver bad news. And they don’t give advice.
The Raggedys work closely with nursing staff, who choose which patients they should visit. These visits bring comfort, encouragement, and joy to thousands of patients who might otherwise have no visitors.
The work of Adventures in Caring has been recognized by:
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President Bush, Point of Light Award #407, in March 1991, for outstanding community service.
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Rotary International Paul Harris Award.
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Santa Barbara Neighborhood Clinics 2002 Health Care Heroes Award.
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International Health & Medical Media Award 2004 for best video in patient care.
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Adventures in Caring Foundation was founded in 1985, by Karen Fox. Karen began by volunteering on her lunch hours. Every day, dressed as Raggedy Ann, she brought encouragement to patients at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital.
Karen spent fifteen years in medical administration, and is a recovered cancer patient. With a special understanding of patient needs “from both sides of the hospital bedrails,” Karen recognized that in addition to the physical challenge of battling an illness, patients have a tremendous need for emotional support.
[See "Karen's Story"]
Adventures in Caring programs receive no government funding, they are supported by private donations and private grants, plus sales of its publications. Eighty-five percent of funds raised go directly into program.
With your support we can help to alleviate the emotional distress of those who are seriously ill or injured. We can teach young people entering the health professions how to communicate with compassion. We can plant the seeds of compassion that will produce a healthier community for our children's children.
[See "Projects in need of Funding"]
Adventures in Caring Foundation
1528 Chapala Street, #202, Santa Barbara, CA 93101
Phone: (805) 962-4500 Fax: (805) 962-2926
E-mail: info@AdventuresInCaring.org
Website: www.AdventuresInCaring.org
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