The Case for Compassion
Compassion is more than being nice. More than a feeling, a philosophy or a trait of personality.
It’s an ability to bring out the best in people—when they are feeling their worst.
You don’t need to be an expert. This is not just for the gifted few. It is something anyone can learn to do, with a little practice.
Adventures in Caring Volunteer visit.
These are important tools for every single person on this planet. Your webinar for the USC Pain Center gave our clinicians the tools to forge stronger healing partnerships with our patients, who are putting their lives in our hands.
We teach the art of relating well with those who suffer. Some call it relationship-centered care. We call it the medicine of compassion.
Above all, it is the art of getting it across. Warm feelings in your own heart are nice to have. But compassion goes to work and actively supports the healing process when the other person gets it that you care.
That’s when the miracles happen. Something ineffable has crossed into their world, and has been received by them along with our words and gestures. And as a result, that other person now feels heard, understood, accepted, respected, appreciated and befriended. A bond has formed, a connection has been made.
In the depths of despair, this connection is the lifeline.
It changes everything.
Isn’t that what we all would want? A lifeline of kindness at our lowest point?
So the question is: Will you offer this lifeline to someone who is suffering alone?
Your donation becomes a light in the darkness of illness.
Your contribution continues to compound year after year in future doctors and nurses who have learned to listen.
Compassion is fundamental to good listening.
Listening from the heart:
- Ensures that we first do no harm
- Builds trust and mutual understanding
- Transforms suffering
- Enables well-being
- Increases job satisfaction for caregivers
- Forges partnerships that produce better health and well-being
See our documentary, The Adventures in Caring Story
Through 40 years of continual practice we’ve refined and proven this method of putting compassion into action, in both professional and volunteer caregiving. From the longest long-term care to the most acute trauma care. From neonatal units to hospices. In hundreds of homes, churches, colleges and medical centers.
Adventures in Caring is widely recognized as the gold standard in learning to communicate well with patients. Our programs have won national and international awards for best video in patient care, for educational innovation, and for contribution to community well-being.
It is rare for any skill development program to capture the very essence of compassion—so that it can be seen, heard and felt—so palpably that it is immediately recognized by the most experienced nurses and physicians as hitting precisely the right tone.
I love this video! It’s a wonderful, candid example of compassion at work in a variety of health care settings. It shows the humanity and joy we can find—even in the tougher situations—if we approach them in the right way.
An opportunity to see what a profound difference human caring makes in the lives of others! Real life situations show how to engage with others in a way that cares for their spirit, their emotions, their humanness.
This work endures because it is the real thing. It is a mission to bring the healing power of love to as many as possible. There is no other agenda. We have simply followed the example set by Mother Teresa, to create something beautiful and uplifting where it is least expected. Such beauty endures.
We hope you will you join us in this mission.
Your gift will put compassion into action
- $50 brightens the day for ten chronically ill, socially isolated seniors.
- $100 gives a team of volunteer caregivers the tools to extend compassion to those who suffer.
- $150 protects a nursing student against burnout.
- $300 introduces The Medicine of Compassion to a professional caregiving team.
- $500 protects a whole team of caregivers against burnout.
- $600 breaks the social isolation of seriously ill seniors for a whole year, for two.
- $1,250 sponsors a one-year internship in relationship-centered care, for a student to gain skills that last a lifetime.
- $5,000 sponsors an entire skilled nursing or memory care facility for one year.
- Gifts of stock or bitcoin are welcome.
- A monthly tithe is a continual investment in the medicine of compassion.
- A bequest leaves your legacy of compassion for future generations.