Organization Details:

Adventures In Caring

The Adventures in Caring Foundation is a nonprofit, 501(c)3, voluntary health organization, based in Santa Barbara, California. Its mission is to lift the spirit and evoke the will to heal in those who are sick and lonely, and to establish a culture of compassion in health care.

Description:
Who is involved:
If you live in the Santa Barbara area, you have probably seen someone in a red wig and striped socks walking into one of the local hospitals or nursing homes. Volunteer visitors dressed as Raggedy Ann and Andy have been a feature of health care in Santa Barbara for more than twenty years.

What you may not know is that under the wig and the makeup is a highly skilled listener with special training in how to interact with patients to promote healing, recovery and emotional well-being.

While Raggedy volunteers come from all walks of life, many of them are pre-med and pre-health profession students from UCSB and other local colleges. In a three-day training session provided by Adventures in Caring, these future doctors, dentists, nurses and health care practitioners learn how to communicate and focus on the patient’s interests, letting the patient be the center of attention. They also learn how to understand emotional needs and appreciate abilities rather than disabilities.

What we do:
The Adventures in Caring Foundation teaches and delivers compassion.
Adventures in Caring delivers compassion through its all-volunteer Raggedy Ann & Andy Patient Care Programs for hospitals and nursing homes. In twenty-two years of service, the Raggedy Ann & Andy volunteers have made almost one million heart-to-heart visits with patients, and their family members.

Why this work is important:
Compassion is fundamental to any healthy, sustainable community. It is the magnetism that holds people, families, and communities together. Simple kindness, common decency, healthy relationships, and civic engagement – are all based on compassion. Without compassion selfishness prevails, goodwill decays, suffering crushes the soul, and a community degenerates into a war-zone. Compassion is often given lip service and taken for granted, but rarely is it deliberately cultivated.

Who we serve:
Adventures in Caring serves all people, and all families, regardless of their illness or injury, age, gender, income, race, or religion.

At first glance, most people think that the Raggedy Ann & Andy program is just for children – yet it has proven effective with patients of all ages, in acute care, rehabilitation and convalescent hospitals. Raggedys give support not only to the patients, but also to the families and staff who care for them.

At present Raggedys visit twenty-eight hospitals and nursing homes every week all year round, primarily in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties. However, Raggedys also visit the sick in four other states.

Why we do it:
There is no pill for loneliness. In the darkest hours of illness or injury, the medicine that lifts the spirit, is compassion.

As Mother Teresa 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.

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 or friends are often unable to visit.

A serious illness forces us to come to terms with issues that we would rather not think about. Patients in hospitals and nursing homes often have no one to talk to about such issues; no one to listen to their hopes and fears.

The Adventures in Caring Visiting Programs meet this need with a good listener and a friendly face at the patient’s bedside.

When the heart opens
and the soul is nourished,
the mind turns towards healing
and the body follows.

How we do it:
All Adventures in Caring volunteers learn how to communicate with people who are seriously ill. They skillfully deliver four life-affirming gifts that all patients, and their families, need: 


1. Attention: noticing the signs, signals and clues that indicate what is most important to the patient or their family – so that they feel heard. 

2. Acknowledgment: letting patients and family members know that they are appreciated as unique individuals – so that they feel respected. 

3. Affection: extending the human touch of warmth, comfort, humor and kindness – so that patients feel connected with the people in who’s care they place their lives.

4. Acceptance: accepting people as they are – so that patients feel safe to make new choices, and to participate in their healing process
   
   

Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy are non-threatening, well-loved, and easily recognized. They are safe: they don’t hurt or deliver bad news. And they don’t give advice. 

The Raggedys work closely with nursing staff, who choose which patients they should visit. These visits bring comfort, encouragement, and joy to thousands of patients who might otherwise have no visitors.

Recognition:
The work of Adventures in Caring has been recognized by:
♦ President Bush, Point of Light Award #407, in March 1991, for outstanding community service.

♦ Rotary International Paul Harris Award.

♦ Santa Barbara Neighborhood Clinics 2002 Health Care Heroes Award.

♦ International Health & Medical Media Award 2004 for best video in patient care.

History:
How Adventures in Caring began:
Adventures in Caring Foundation was founded in 1985, by Karen Fox. Karen began by volunteering on her lunch hours. Every day, dressed as Raggedy Ann, she brought encouragement to patients at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital.

Karen spent fifteen years in medical administration, and is a recovered cancer patient. With a special understanding of patient needs “from both sides of the hospital bedrails,” Karen recognized that in addition to the physical challenge of battling an illness, patients have a tremendous need for emotional support.

Contact people:

Shelley Rickard, Program Director, (phone), (email) Simon Fox, Executive Director, (phone), (email)

Office fax number: (805) 962-2926

Address:

1528 Chapala Street. Suite 202 Santa Barbara, CA 93101 (See a map)

Web Site: http://www.adventuresincaring.org/aboutus.shtml#

Last updated on September 29, 2009