What
we do
Every week, all year round, a team of more than one hundred volunteers, visit patients in hospitals and nursing homes. These volunteers, aged 16-83, are skilled listeners with special training in the art of communicating with compassion. They lift the spirit and alleviate the distress of facing illness alone. In addition, a volunteer board of directors, committee members, advisors, and auxiliary volunteers work behind the scenes to move our mission forward.
With a strong continued learning component,
our volunteer programs have become service-learning opportunities,
where undergraduate students can learn about the human side
of medicine, while being of service to the frailest members
of our community. Adventures in Caring is also conducting
a pilot program in which volunteers provide psychosocial
support to patients while they are on dialysis at the Santa
Barbara Artificial Kidney Center.
Adventures in Caring publishes teaching
tools for staff, student and volunteer leaders. Ready-made
workshops and books give group leaders a way to build the
capacity for compassion in their teams. By improving the
quality of communication between care providers and those
they assist, almost any program increases its effectiveness.
This educational program includes:
• Our
Videos and Training Guides
• Our Books
• Our Speakers
Who we serve
Adventures in Caring serves all people,
and all families, regardless of their illness or injury,
age, gender, race, or religion. At first glance, most people
think that the Raggedy Ann and Andy program is just for
children - yet it has proven effective with patients of
all ages, in acute care, subacute, rehabilitation and convalescent
hospitals. Raggedys give support not only to the patients,
but also to the families and health care staff who care
for them. At present Raggedys visit 32 hospitals and nursing
homes every week, primarily in Santa Barbara and Ventura
counties in California. However, Raggedys also visit the
sick in seven other states.
Why this
work is important
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 and friends are
often unable to visit. There is no pill for loneliness.
As Mother Theresa 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. The Adventures in Caring Visiting Programs
meet this need with a good listener and a friendly face
at the patient's bedside.
Compassion is fundamental to health, healthy
relationships, and sustainable communities. It is the invisible
stuff that holds people, families, and communities together.
Yet rarely is it deliberately cultivated.
If we do not leave a legacy of compassion,
how will future generations acquire this vital quality of
character?
