“All hospitals are not of the same level… The CHU is still more serious… It’s well known: the best doctors are there. My son is not going to stay here.” This sentence is pronounced by a young father of a premature baby, in a hospital on the outskirts of Marseille. His aggressiveness, masking his anguish as a father, is received like a slap in the face by the child’s two caregivers.
They both relive this situation, a week later, during a role-playing workshop carried out by Étincelle de Soin, an association which trains caregivers on the issues of the care relationship, through theater.
This association was created 10 years ago by Dr Lélia Bracco, endocrinologist and Karine Casati, actress and trainer. “If initially, we had created the association so that patient care would improve through training on the relationship… we quickly realized that above all it allows us to take care of caregivers.”
“Hospital workshops are a rare opportunity for caregivers to talk about what they experience on a daily basis. They have little time for this, and not always the tools or spaces to do it. Going through theater, through games, allows you to unload heavy experiences in a roundabout way. This allows you to free your speech and equip yourself in a fun way,” explains Karine. “We also come to bring our acting and our training insights to raise awareness of what can undermine the relationship and therefore weigh on caregivers.”
The caregivers testify to what these workshops bring them: they are places of perspective, to become aware of their feelings, to externalize them, to return to what may have caused a problem with a patient and to leave with simple keys to avoid reliving the same type of situation. The teams also leave more united and relaxed.
Theatre, with its corporeal, offbeat and emotional dimension, allows us to experience things “on another level”. “By offering perspective and creating an inner movement among participants, our tools make it possible to sustainably transform the way we understand the relationship between caregivers and patients, for the well-being of all.”
Following the observation that taking care of caregivers and their relationships with patients is one of the ways to improve the health of all, l’Étincelle du Soin offers training in hospitals, but also theatrical awareness-raising interventions (plays, offbeat conferences) in conferences or events.
To know more :
etincelledusoin.com
