Maple Dignity Day

I think the core figure here at Maple (Sheffield Health & Social Care) has been Colleen (support worker) who learned the meaning of dignity when she was growing up under the indignities of South African Apartheid . With the cooperation of Occupational Therapy, Colleen organised a writing session on the 24th February. People got together to tell each other what dignity means to them. A dignity tree was painted on a poster and 25 individuals (staff included) were handed a leaf; they were invited to write upon it a personal statement about dignity. Several artworks also came out of the session, and those are currently on display outside the ward office, alongside the dignity tree. Here is a poem that was written for Dignity Day:

Two eyes in dignity

Two eyes in your head

Please use them to see me

not something you've read

that says I'm disordered,

depressed, or elated,

whatever my move:

you have me checkmated.

The jargon's concealing

a real human being.

I won't pawn my dignity,

change your way of seeing.



As a team we are attempting to put greater emphasis on privacy and dignity, and acknowledging that we sometimes run the risk of becoming too task-orientated--at the expense of individual needs. For example, bed-state management has often led us to keep people in shared dormitories--even when single-rooms are available. The practise has sometimes created great disappointment, indignity, and resentment. There has been a perception on the part of some of the individuals concerned that they are deliberately being denied the privacy they are entitled to--perhaps due to vindictive motives on our part. The hope is that, in future, we will avoid that pereception by priorotising privacy and dignity, as far as possible. We are also attempting to avoid the traps of stigmatisation which are always a hazard to staff who have prolonged responsibility for the care of people whose actions are labelled with disorders of personality