‘WELCOME HOME!’

Teacher’s Diary

My entire work-life has either required pedagogical or andragogic skill-sets of me. Whichever way these have unfolded to date, they have been interspersed by two-way, often times, unplanned informal non-structured content teaching and learning. I had my dose of such an intermittent PRN lesson a couple of days ago, when a service user said to another accompanying her statement with a tight hug, “Welcome home!” Home in the time of this poignant moment was/is an LSU in a primary health care with an adjunct education provision. The beauty of this facility is that if you were a ‘green’ or blindfolded visitor to/on the unit, with no prior knowledge of the presenting issues of persons receiving therapies, you’d have thought it was a hotel! “It is home here! “It is home here” someone enthused the next day at handover. But trust the eagle eyed consultant who slap-lashed our celebration with, “It’s no bloody centre-parks but yep, it’s proof we engender relational security here and that is necessary for souls to mend!” Abraham Maslow’s 1943 Hierarchy of needs features the ingredient – safety which is comparable to relational security.

Safety (or security) is an essential need we all crave to have satisfied or to feel is in place, or indeed must create and foster in virtually every facet of our life experiences. Safety is not only about having security at your gate or CCTV home and away, it is about knowing that you are not vulnerable to harm, displacement, back-stabbings, and the like. This trust thing is what you must create, foster, be and demonstrate in your schools, businesses, organisations, establishments. Feeling safe will drive relational security. Your students or workers, because they feel safe enough to then perform at their best, will demonstrate having relational security by making top grades, upping production and company ratings, lowering staff turnover and lengthening your prospective student-waiting lists. So quit the promos and jingles on social media! Concentrate on introducing and fostering activities that drive the feelings of safety in every fabric of your relationships, home, school and work place. Let me leave you with these exercises this week. Please do a soul search and make a list of things you would do when you feel safe in a relationship, any relationship. Make another list of some shaky relationships you presently have. Try to identify what’s wrong in them. Are there any safety problems impeding the growth of any?

Omoru is a freelance writer, education, health and social care advocate