Care professions unknowingly bring with them a legacy of unequal power - those who know, serving those that need. Furthermore, their efforts to provide Care are regularly interrupted by endless and burdensome administrative tasks to maintain the system itself. In this context, it becomes difficult to admit errors, to ask for support or to collaborate as a team with other colleagues or partners. It’s probably also difficult to go home feeling good and fully satisfied with a day’s work.
For younger generations, vocational jobs as teaching, nursing or social working are not appealing anymore. At the same time, educational institutions are focused on developing essential technical and scientific capabilities, but the softer skills such as empathic communication tend to be only a minor portion of the curriculum.
As a result, compassionate Care is delivered inconsistently and it’s a matter of luck rather than the norm if you do happen to receive it. Many front-line professionals burn out or drop out and it is fast becoming an issue for organisations to retain and nurture talent.
What if we reframe Care as a creative way of working?
Why not introduce design methods to encourage empathy and embrace learning-through-prototyping? What if we empower future Care professionals to work in collaborative models of Care by offering new training frameworks and coaching?
If we really want to change the paradigm, we also need to proactively drive public and private organisations to create the time, resources and culture within their systems to do it.