Susan Buell serves as the Association Director of Health Initiatives. She shares her thoughts on working during a pandemic and the importance of grit, vulnerability, and innovation.
Sometimes I feel as though working during a pandemic is something like playing an extended game of “never have I ever,” and then I remember, this isn’t a game. This is a long journey through the unknown into bold new horizons never before imagined. There is no “back to normal” there is only “ahead to new.”
When I was given the invitation to write a piece for our staff newsletter on what it’s like to work during a pandemic, my mind immediately jumped back to the grief and loss that I have come to associate with the word “pandemic.” The closures, the furloughs, the boundless disappointments and fears throughout our communities. And then there was, and is, the testimony of our grit.
To summarize, for me, working in a pandemic rolls up to three words: grit, vulnerability, and innovation. Allow me to share some examples of what I mean.
Grit: We dig in, we serve people, and we figure it out! It’s uncomfortable and uncertain, and we lean in any way.
Vulnerability: We have to ask for help, we have to admit we can’t do it all on our own (still learning this lesson, to be honest), we admit it when we’re stuck or frustrated and we dig in. Grit + Vulnerability = Innovation
Innovation: I have seen numerous innovative approaches to engage members and the community from all aspects of our Y team since the beginning of this pandemic. I would love to share some that you may not be as aware of from our team working on Health Initiatives (a.k.a. Chronic Disease) and Community-Integrated Health Care.
Who knew the pandemic could bring gifts along with the struggles?! Our inability to continue to serve in person created opportunities to deconstruct the barriers of regionality. Before the pandemic, we had long waiting lists for those self or medically referred to our group-based programs like the YMCA’s Diabetes Prevention Program, LIVESTRONG at the Y program, YMCA Weight Loss program, and our youth and family obesity intervention program called ACT! Actively Changing Together. The waitlists happened because we couldn’t start a new program until there were enough qualified participants to start a group at a particular facility. This was a huge and growing challenge for us to successfully manage before the pandemic. But then came the need to serve in the virtual space to continue to meet the demand and voila! Our grit + vulnerability = innovation.
We collaborated to serve and admit our historic limitations. With the support of our staff teams, health partners, health departments, and the WA State Alliance of Ys, we began serving without regional boundaries. We now have people in our groups from all over the state. Our Ys are able to continue to support each other as we work to rebuild our local and regional capacity. We have PKC members meeting each other from well outside of their local Ys to have support in overcoming increasing health risks.
We really got creative with our community partners in our place-based health equity initiatives. For example, the 150+ low-income seniors living with hypertension we had been serving in person at Mercy Housing in Tacoma through our Blood Pressure Self-Monitoring program, we flipped to serve through remote wellness coaching. Virtual didn’t work for this population due to low technology access and literacy, multiple spoken languages, and other accessibility concerns. We figured out how to continue the program with telephonic coaching and remote monitoring and had amazing results! People felt connected, supported, and heard.
Some of our adoptions have worked better than others and we continue to learn and we adjust. The lessons learned are long and inspiring and it seems like this work of remote and virtual delivery are here to stay for the long term. These innovations are helping us rebuild the trust our community and health partners have in the Y and our services. This continues to be a critical time to persevere in helping people navigate increasingly challenging health concerns.
We are proud to push forward with our formula of grit + vulnerability = innovation with you all to help improve the physical and emotional health of all those we serve; each other included.
I wish you all a healthy, joyous, and peaceful holiday season. Please take a moment to appreciate all you have done and been for our communities over this holiday season. Breathe deeply to be ready to rise to all the new opportunities to serve in 2022.