Video Wins Award:
Santa Barbara, CA - November 18, 2004

The Medicine of Compassion, the new video from Santa Barbara’s Adventures in Caring Foundation, won the 2004 International Health & Medical Media Award for best video in the category of patient care. The award, affectionately known as the “FREDDIE”, is the equivalent of an Oscar for media productions in the field of health and medicine.
(More info) (.pdf file)
Simon, Karen Fox and Bent Myggen
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
Presidential Point-Of-Light Award
In March 1991, President Bush, awarded Karen and Simon Fox the Point of Light Award (#407), for outstanding community service.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________

The Rotary International Paul Harris Award.

Santa Barbara Neighborhood Clinics 2002 Health Care Heroes Award.

Los Angeles Times, Family Circle, Parade Magazine, Guideposts Magazine.

CNN News, KCAL News (Los Angeles), Columbia Pictures with Willard Scott, Hour Magazine with Gary Collins.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
Achievements
  • Total Raggedy visits to date: 750,000!
  • Participation in the student volunteer program, Compassion in Action, doubled in the last three years.
  • Sales of our best-selling educational video, Communicating with Compassion, reached 4,000.
  • The third edition of our book What Can I Say? was published. 22,000 copies are now in print.
  • Santa Barbara Neighborhood Clinics recognized Karen and Simon Fox with their Health Care Heroes Award for 2002.

    In Fiscal Year 2003-2004

  • 69,500 one-on-one Raggedy visits with patients, family members, and staff.
  • 33 health care facilities visited weekly: 4 hospitals, 26 nursing homes, 2 residential homes, and 1 clinic. As follows: Santa Barbara County, 14; Ventura County, 8; San Luis Obispo County, 3; other counties in California, 1; Outside California: 7 (in PA, IA, UT, AZ).
  • 202 active volunteers served as board members, committee members, advisors, seamstresses, program support staff, and Raggedy Ann & Andy visitors.
  • 169 people volunteered as Raggedy Ann or Andy (up from 159 last year). 109 of these were students.
  • 72% of all Raggedy volunteers are in Santa Barbara County.
  • 88% of volunteers in Santa Barbara County are students.
  • 7% of all Raggedy volunteers are in Ventura County.
  • The Raggedy Therapy programs at Cottage Health System and Reading Hospital & Medical Center remain the two largest programs with more than 28 volunteers regularly visiting Cottage and 12 at Reading.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
More Details re: The Freddie Award:
The Adventures in Caring Foundation’s new video, The Medicine of Compassion, received the 2004 International Health & Medical Media Award for best video in the category of patient care. The award, affectionately known as The FREDDIE, is an “Oscar” equivalent for media productions in the field of health and health care.

Each year, the International Health & Medical Media Awards attract the best feature-length films, documentaries and videos from all corners of the globe. The competition is currently the preeminent event devoted entirely to health and medical audiovisuals. Top honors were given to producers of The Medicine of Compassion, Simon Fox of Adventures in Caring and Bent Myggen of VisionEars. Bent, Simon and Karen were in New York on November 5th to receive the award at the 30th Anniversary Award Ceremony.

The Medicine of Compassion: Core Skills for the Human Side of Healing, is designed to teach skills needed to bring the healing power of compassion into the healthcare setting. It features real doctors and nurses relating to patients and their families at Santa Barbara and Goleta Valley Cottage Hospitals. There are no role plays or reenactments by actors. Viewers watch and learn how actual medical personnel communicate much more than information to their patients. In practicing the medicine of compassion, these gifted healers convey and extend compassion to their patients in practical, timely ways as a natural part of their every day’s work. The Medicine of Compassion is the first in a series of three videos designed to explore and teach skill in the human side of healing. This first video is aimed at young men and women who are beginning their careers in health care, and shows the core skills necessary to communicate compassion to people who are seriously ill, injured or dying. At Adventures in Caring, we have long underscored that compassion is vital to healing. Today, current medical research recognizes, for example, the close link between empathy and adherence to a healing medical regimen. But the question of how to teach compassion in the health care setting remains a mystery to trainers and administrators in most organizations – which is where the Adventures in Caring Foundation is making such an important breakthrough. This video, and the series to come, is a distillation of our twenty years of pioneering work in the field of patient care. It is extremely gratifying that the quality of this work is being recognized, because we can now pass on to a widening audience what we have discovered about compassion and healing. We especially appreciate the funding from the Wood-Claeyssens Foundation which made the program and the video possible.
[Return to Top]

Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy are trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc. and are used by Adventures in Caring with permission. Licensed by United Media.
center>