Workshop 6th World Congress on Positive Psychology 2019

SOARING Into Strengths: An Evidence-Informed Approach To Helping Hospitalized Children, Families, And Healthcare Professionals Thrive. (#383)

Karen A Garman 1 , Lisa Buksbaum 2 , Pamela Nunez del Prado Chavez 3 , Peggy Kern 4
  1. Healthcare Education, Leadership & Performance, San Diego, CA, United States
  2. Soaringwords, NEW YORK
  3. Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Miraflores, Lima , Peru
  4. The University of Melbourne, Parkvlle, VIC, Australia

Each year, millions of children globally suffer from chronic or serious illness. The child, family, community, and all who work with the children are affected. The medical experience is often one of isolation, pain, stress, and sensory overload– children, parents, and workers simply try to survive each day.

What if that could change? Positive psychology interventions have the potential to significantly shift mindsets and bring out strengths of children, parents, and workers, helping to enhance quality of life.

Soaringwords aims to do just that, by inspiring ill children and their families to take active roles in self-healing. SOARING into Strength is a strength-based approach, focused on Shifting mental models from helplessness to strength, building Optimism, encouraging Altruism through activities that pay kindness forward to others, learning strategies to support Resilience through the challenges of illness, and the power of Imagery, Narrative and Gratitude. 

This workshop introduces the SOARING into Strength approach, highlights its empirical basis and ongoing research testing the program across multiple countries, allows participants to experience SOARING activities, and provides clear strategies that participants can start using within healthcare settings to help themselves and others start to SOAR.

  • Select one of the following conference tracks which best describes your submission area: Positive Health and Wellness