Dignity creative storyboard
Dignity – Little Things Make a Big Difference
Whether you work in a hospital or a care home, or you support people living in their own homes or who attend community gatherings, it’s vital that you understand why dignity is so important. In fact being treated with dignity is something we all want and expect. You may be a neighbour, daughter, son, grandchild, parent, pupil, friend, work colleague or team mate–whatever your relationship, you will want to be included, listened to and treated with respect.
Dignity is a difficult word to explain but let’s give it a go. Dignity is about valuing individuals, showing fairness and kindness, being respectful and thoughtful, and treating everyone as a unique person and in a way that we’d want to be treated ourselves.
To understand dignity it can help to remember the feelings we’ve had when things haven’t gone so well for us personally.
Perhaps you were on the toilet and failed to lock the door properly then someone walked in. Maybe someone shouted at you in front of a group of people. In both of these situations you are likely to have felt great embarrassment and humiliation. Perhaps you’ve been forced to do something you really didn’t want to do – like being made to eat liver when you absolutely hate it or pressed into dancing with a friend when there was hardly anyone else on the dance floor. In situations like these you may have felt bullied and powerless. At some point in your life you are likely to have felt that you haven’t been listened to.Maybe you were ignored and talked over when you said you wanted to go to pictures but you ended up having to stayat home watching TV instead. If this was the case,you probably felt insignificant and maybe even a little worthless. You may even have been physically abused. Perhaps you found yourself being attacked in a pub or as part of a road rage incident which would have left you feeling terrorised, powerless and scared.
These feelings aren’t good and if we have experiences like this everyday, it’s likely to affect our general wellbeing and mental health. Therefore if we work with individuals who need support or we’re just being a friend, relative or neighbour,it’s really important that we think about other people’sdignity and do everything that we possibly can to help them maintain it at all times.
Very few people deliberately set out to be cruel or unthinking.There are some of course who do enjoy tormenting others and abusing their power. Thankfully, though, these situationsare reasonably rare and always investigated whenever cases come to light.
The rest of us need to be aware thatit can only take small thoughtless actions for someone’s dignity to be compromised and their confidence and self esteem to be negatively affected. Sometimes because we’re so busy we might not think things through properly and don’t always realise what effect our behaviour can have.
Think about a patient in hospital who needs help to eat and drink but doesn’t get it. Their meal is left on their tray and it quickly goes cold. Someone else comes round, assumes they’re not hungry and clears it away. How would you feel if you were the patient?
An older person living in their own home needs help to get washed and dressed. Theircarer,who’s in a hurry, rushes through things and doesn’t give them the opportunity to do what they can. For example they can easily rinse themselves in the showerand dry parts of their body without help – things that make them feel they aren’t totally dependent on others. The carer then decides what the client will wear without even asking them. How would you feel if you were the client?
Imagine you live in a care home and one of your fellow resident’s often waves a walking stick in the air, terrorising you with it. The staff seem too busy to notice and you are too timid to say anything to them. Would you like to live like this?
A teenager who has a learning disability is a fanatical Manchester United fan and always wears his MU football shirt. A new support worker says I hate the reds, they’re a rubbish team, and their fans are rubbish too, in fact I even hate the colour red. How would you feel if you were the teenager?
You’re a black mother taking your son to cubs and as you’re a bit late arriving, you park your car at a slight angle and then quickly run in and deliver him. You return to the car and a white older man says very loudly and slowly in a patronising manner, “we don’t park cars like that in this country.” How would you feel?
Imagine you’re a wheelchair user and you turn up for a meeting but the building isn’t wheelchair friendly, even though the person organising the meeting knowsall about your disability. Would you feel valued?
Imagine you’re a primary school pupil and one of your fellow pupils has a violent epileptic seizure. Your teacher asks you to run next door and get help from another teacher. You do as you’re told and being a little shocked, enter the classroom without knocking. You start to explain what’s happened but the teacher stops you and angrily says go outside and knock before you come back in. How would you feel and what would you do next?
In all these examples it wouldn’t take much to change things so that everyone’s dignity was maintained - just bit of thought about what we say and do. After all, little things can make a big difference.
Everyone has the right to live their lives free from abuse and neglect and if we ignore the little things, situations can become much more serious, eventually leading to safeguarding investigations. Nobody wants this, so it’s better to prevent them from happening.
We all have a role to play in enhancing the dignity of others, including you.
It’s everyone’s job and everyone’s business. Being treated with dignity is a human right not an optional extra. Make sure that you take a hands-on approach and shout out for dignity whenever you can. You have the power to help make other people’slives’ better.
This presentation has been financed by Care Sector Alliance Cumbria, Cumbria County Council, Manchester City Council, Oldham Council, Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council, Sefton Council, Tameside & Glossop Community Health Care, Tameside Metropolitan Borough and Trafford Council - all members of the North West Dignity Network.
Logos to be included at the end.