What Matters To You Day encourages more meaningful conversations
On Thursday 9 June we invited all staff to take part in What Matters To You Day – an event which encourages us to share what’s important and to actively listen to and act on the responses of others.
By asking our users and carers what matters to them, then actively listening and acting on their responses, the day also aims to establish better communication between people giving and receiving care and to ensure it is person-centred at all times. This is why the ethos of What Matters To You Day is ‘Ask, Listen, Do’.
To gather staff responses, Partnership Engagement Officer, Lorna McIlreavy, set up tables in TJWB and EAC HQ, with blank speech bubbles, pens, goodie bags and even special WMTY Day cupcakes to invite people to drop by and answer the question: ‘What Matters To You?’
Lorna and Adult and Young Carer Co-ordinator, Kevin Conway, also joined staff at East Ayrshire Carers Centre and hosted another WMTY Day stall at their Carers Week tea party.
Over the course of the campaign we heard from 36 members of HSCP staff, 56 carers and the eight members of the IJB Stakeholder Forum.
The replies we received were wonderfully varied and ranged from “time with family”, “good coffee” and “dogs” to “mental health”, “caring for my husband” and “knowing I can meet my child’s needs”.
Whether uplifting, poignant or funny, each person’s answer was unique to them and helped us get to know each other just that little bit better.
We’d like to thank everyone who took the time to participate.
We also invited senior management staff, Craig McArthur and Jo Gibson, to give us their take on the day and to tell us why it’s so important…
Craig McArthur, Director of EAHSCP
“I believe in treating people the way we’d want to be treated ourselves. As a Health and Social Care leader I want to know that the engagement we have with people is meaningful and makes a difference to their lives.”
Jo Gibson, Head of Wellbeing and Recovery at EAHSCP
“What Matters To You Day helps us to stop and focus on the people we’re trying to serve, helping us to hear their voices more clearly so that our response, services and care is meeting what matters to them.”
You can hear Craig and Jo’s full responses in our WMTY Day video.
To bring the WMTY Day events to a close, Lorna also organised a staff meeting with Tommy Whitelaw, National Lead at Carer Voices, who gave an impassioned speech on ‘Intelligent Kindness’, the importance of meaningful communication and how crucial it was for his late mother during the final stages of her life, and for Tommy himself as her carer.
The What Matters To You? Day event was a huge success and a great chance for us all to stop, talk and listen to each other.
By taking an interest in what other people value most in life, we can form deeper social connections and learn how we can best help and support our friends, family and colleagues to achieve their goals. In the words of Jo Gibson, “we’re all human”, and we all need meaningful human connection.
That’s what What Matters To You? Day is all about.
