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Marilyn Sutherland

Cultural Holistic Helping

Marilyn Sutherland June 1, 2008

You would think that working on your Masters Degree in Social Work would be daunting. Yes? How about helping out at any one of the numerous soup kitchens we have across this country. My experience at the St. John’s Community Kitchen (SJK) was far from this. I was actually overwhelmed by what I saw, felt and heard. But truthfully, that word “community” is what makes it happen. The experience I have helping at any kitchen is very minimal, a short stint in one northern town. What I brought with me is natural, simple, and ordinary.

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The Integrated Circle of Care is a fluid and collaborative approach followed by workers from different agencies weaving through St. John’s Kitchen. Within this approach, staff members from each agency are aware of their specific personal roles. However, the high level of collaboration between workers means that people can approach any worker, without knowing their agency association or specific role, and still receive support – either that worker will support the person directly, or they will introduce the person to another worker who can support the person more appropriately.

This approach makes relationships more natural and support more accessible. Workers from different agencies are easily approachable, meaning that people build relationships with multiple workers. Having relationships with different workers is important to a person’s support – it makes support from a trusted source easy to find, and means that people have a choice of worker to approach in any given situation.

In order to maintain a circle of care around a person, workers from different agencies ask for consent from the person for information to be shared between workers. Continuous communication between workers helps to ensure that people do not fall into gaps between services, and also that services are not duplicated.

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