Well-being Month 2024

Well-being Month '24

Announcing Cook Children’s Well-Being Month

Taking care of ourselves is a necessity to keeping our Promise, treating each other like family, and thriving at work and home. Some days balancing everything in our lives can be challenging. When we take time for personal and professional well-being it’s easier to find the energy and motivation to show up as our best selves each day.

We’re launching an annual tradition dedicated to helping you be your best-self at work and home. August will be Cook Children’s Well-Being Month. We’ve brought together multiple teams to promote self-care and connect our 10,000 employees to the programs, benefits, and resources offered to enjoy life and thrive at work and home. 

According to Gallup’s research, well-being is all the things that are important to how we think about and experience our lives. This month we'll talk about the importance of self-care and how teamwork, connections with colleagues, and peer support boost well-being. Lastly, we’ll connect you to the many resources at Cook Children’s to support your well-being.  

What’s Happening This Month

Well-being Month Page on the new CookNet: visit this page to learn about events, classes, and activities planned for August.

Some of the highlights are:

• Look for the Cook Children’s University & Healthy Me virtual self-care class schedule and register through links on that page.
• Learn more about the Virgin Pulse app and how it can help with your well-being goals.
• Connect with your colleagues and teams at Beat the Heat Treat (see in-person schedule and IDT information for off-site and remote teams)
• Take part in Well-Bingo for a variety of well-being activities and the chance to win a gift card.  

Note: The self-care class schedule, details on Beat the Heat Treat, Virgin Pulse info sheet and the Well-Bingo card are in the top right corner of this page to download and print.

Destigmatizing Self-Care

We hope the message from Mr. Merrill inspires you to focus on self-care and learn what’s important to your well-being.

What is Self-Care?

Taking care of yourself is essential for maintaining overall well-being and allows you to be better at everything you do, at work and at home. Self-care involves self-awareness and intentional activities that reduce stress, replenish mental and physical resources and help you enjoy life. Self-care is not selfish; rather, it is necessary for maintaining balance and ensuring your needs are met.

According to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), self-care is the process by which people at least temporarily reduce the demands they are experiencing and replenish spent resources. Since a wide variety of activities can be considered self-care, two things to keep in mind when thinking about self-care activities:

• Add restorative activities to your days
• Reduce your demands by identifying and minimizing stressors

Research shows that certain activities are more restorative than others. Use these five points as a guide to help you think about what self-care activities you should choose.

1. Focus on something that helps you stop thinking about your demands
2. Have a choice about when, how, and what you do to recover
3. Do anything that helps you relax physically and mentally 
4. Engage in activities that challenge you or help you acquire new skills 
5. Build connections and spend time with others (family, friends, colleagues)

Self-care is very personal - it varies from person to person. It’s about finding what works for you and making it a regular part of your routine. By prioritizing self-care, you can improve your overall quality of life.

During Well-being Month, there are a variety of self-care classes and activities in August to help you take care of yourself. To learn more, click here to go to the Well-being Month page on CookNet.

Kristin Burrow 1

By Kaley Johnson

Kristin Burrow, Chaplain of Well-Being in the Spiritual Care Department, and Jennifer Hayes, the Director of Spiritual Care, have long seen the need for Cook Children’s staff to have emotional and spiritual support. In July 2023, Burrow started in her new position after working at Cook Children’s for five years.

Since then, she has focused on extending resources for staff well-being through empowerment, new programs and emphasis on listening.

In July 2023, Kristin moved into the newly created role as Chaplain of Well-Being. While traditional hospital chaplain roles are connected to patients, Kristin focuses on staff. As a former PRN and NICU chaplain she saw firsthand the burnout and emotional strain that can accumulate for people in the medical field. Her hope is through education and access to resources, staff will not only help themselves, but also help one another.

One such initiative Kristin has tackled is creating QPR workshops for staff. Similar to CPR, QPR -- which stands for Question, Persuade, Refer -- teaches people to help peers who are in a medical emergency. Staff learn how to talk to someone in a mental health crisis, urge them to seek help and refer them to mental health resources at Cook Children’s.

Each QPR training lasts one hour and can be taken during work time.  Participants will learn the warning signs of a suicide crisis, know what to say to someone who might be at risk for suicide and how to how to get help. The training will be available in English and Spanish and there is no cost to employees.

Staff at the Medical Center-Fort Worth will be able to sign up to take part in the training via ULearn here. Leaders can also reach out to Kristin to schedule a time to learn more about scheduling a training time that works for their team.

Kristin has also focused on peer-to-peer conversations, which are an integral piece of mental health wellbeing in the workplace. To create the space for more of those peer-to-peer connections, Kristin and the Spiritual Care Department increased the amount of debriefs that departments and individuals participate in after an emotional event or case. In 2024 so far, the department has helped coordinate 99 debriefs with 701 total staff members.

“Our Promise starts with knowing that every child’s life is sacred’, and knowing that, we promise to ‘improve the well-being of every child in our care’. Our employees work so hard to live into that promise, and it takes a toll on the mind, body and spirit. I am grateful this role reminds us that our lives are also sacred, and our well-being is connected to our patients’ well-being,” she said.  

Kristin, a Fort Worth native, obtained a degree in Political Science before going to seminary school at 35. Even before then, she took part in various nonprofits which heavily influenced her approach to wellness care.

Locally and abroad, she worked with farmers through the organization Growing Hope, which helps people develop sustainable farming practices. Rather than a one-size-fits-all approach, Kristin and her work at Growing Hope focused on what individual communities already knew and had access to and helped create a unique farming plan tailored to the community.

That approach gave her the foundation to how she approaches spiritual care now, in which she empowers people to discover solutions instead of just telling them what to do.

“If you stop and you listen to somebody, they have their own solution in them,” she said. “I'm not the solution, but helping them find the solution for themselves, or helping them find and connect to the resources that we have, I think that that's really important.”

As she continues in her role, Kristin hopes to continue to facilitate peer-to-peer support programs, increase support for staff who experience workplace violence and coordinate more debriefs for Cook Children’s staff.

You can contact Kristin at StaffCare@cookchildrens.org or call Spiritual Care office (682) 885-4030 during business hours. If you need to reach a chaplain after hours please call (682) 885-4000 and page the chaplain on call.