"Our Healing Connections" began as a project for nurses by nurses who were determined to help their peers deal with the stress and burnout endemic to the field, and which the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated.

Nancy Farish, Jeanell Webb-Jones, and Jane Muir began working together on "Room to Reflect" a program which encourages healthcare workers to give themselves permission to address their stress through the use of mobile "resiliency toolkits", a box of physical and digital tools designed to encourage care for mental health and wellness. 

In 2021, the three clinicians were invited by University of Virginia President James E. Ryan to scale the project up in order to encompass all of UVA's population, not just UVA Health.

You may learn more about the project from this video interview with Nancy, Jeanell, and Jane:
https://virginia.box.com/s/nq6m4pfgd4qk0lh0hktcimmwp2pxkzvz

The "our" in "Our Healing Connections" means all of us, the entire UVA community. We invite you to benefit not only from experiencing the offerings in this collection but also by contributing to them. Do you have an original song, meditation, poem, or prose piece that would be a good addition? If so, please submit it by doing the following:

"Survey Says: 'Resilience Toolbox' Builds Resilience Results", UVA Today; August 24, 2022.

"As Stress and Demands Increase,Three Nurses set out to Create a Traveling Escape", UVA Today;  June 25, 2021.