I'm going to go ahead and get our recording started here. And I am so thrilled to welcome our presenters today. Deeply thrilled. We are so glad to welcome Brenda Hough. She is a librarian, a writer, a trainer with 25 years of experience and she has a new consulting business, EluciDare Learning, that we encourage you all to check out. We're so happy for you, Brenda. We're also thrilled -- I'm also thrilled to welcome my colleague, Betha Gutsche, who comes to us as the WebJunction Program Manager. She does so, so much with you all and the library community and we're so thrilled to have both of you here today. Thank you so much for being here. I'm going to shift this on over and have Betha get us started. Welcome. >> BETHA: Thank you, Jennifer, for that lovely introduction. Brenda and I have actually been working together on this particular topic for well over a year now. I believe this is our third iteration. And we grow and learn as we develop the next iteration on this really important topic. We are following a fairly simple agenda. We are investigate self-care first and then follow the progression of how that moves into workplace well-being and then community care, knowing that that is all driven by this overarching power of social connection. We'd like to start with a little chat activity first. Brenda. >> BRENDA: Thanks, Betha. Hi, everyone. As Betha said, we're looking at those three different topics today, really -- self-care, workplace, well-being, and then community care too. But we're going to start with self-care. And this of course is a big topic these days. The definition we're using is on the slide. Really, the time that you spend taking care of yourself. And I think because it's talked about so much, written about so much, it can start to feel almost like a cliche or it can feel really commercialized. But just remembering that this is actually something that is so essential, that's -- that's so important. So what we wanted to start with -- because the ways that we practice self-care are so varied and individual, what one person does for self-care might be very different from what another person does for self-care. So this is our first chat activity. You want to make sure that the chat is going to everyone. But we'd love to just hear from you what have you been doing to take care of yourself. What things have you been doing to take care of yourself? Betha -- while people start to share, how about you? What would you say are some of your -- >> BETHA: My thing that's been so important to me, but it's not unique by any stretch. I have been gardening. I started gardening at the beginning of the pandemic. Now I'm entering my third spring and it's just been so rewarding. >> BRENDA: That's great. OK. Lots of good things in the chat. I see someone shared the one I think of, which is yoga. I have dabbled in yoga for a long time and I still am dabbling. I feel like I'm trying to incorporate it into my daily routine more. Candy Crush. Great. It's fun to read through these. >> BETHA: I love the variety. Like you said, Brenda, everyone has their very individual approach to how they care for their well-being. >> BRENDA: Broadway musical class. It can be simple things. It can be big things. Lots of things that are being shared. Cooking, cooking, cooking. Spider solitary. OK. So we're seeing lots of great things here. We capture the chat, as Jennifer said, so it will be fun to look through this later, because I feel like I'm not seeing everything as they scroll by quickly. But lots of great things there. So in this session we're going to narrow our focus a little bit, not just really looking at self-care overall, but we're going to focus on connection and belonging and how important they are and how connection and belonging can contribute to self-care. And then we're going to look at our workplaces and how we can look at self-care not just as something that you do outside of work hours, but actually as something that we can leave into our workplaces too. So let's say, for example, being outside, that of course can be a solo activity, but can be a shared activity. Doesn't need to be reserved into weekends. It can be woven into your work day too. For me, yoga is something I do on my own sometimes. But it's something I do with friends. I have my husband doing it now. I have connected during the pandemic with my sisters to do yoga. I did an outdoor class. I have some breathing exercises and stretches that I do at my desk. Again, we're going to focus in this session a lot on the connection piece of self-care and also on things -- this not just being something you do in "off" hours when you're not at work. >> BETHA: And that's a wonderful segue because really fundamental to thinking about that progression from solo care to community care is this idea of the power of social connection. It boils down to we are, we humans -- we are social beings. We are actually -- our brains are wired to seek social connection at the survival level. It's that fundamental to us. And most of us just really need social connections for the deeper well-being in our lives. There are all kinds of studies that indicate that strong social connections lower levels of anxiety and depression, they strengthen your immune system. There are studies actually looking at the genetic level and found genes impacted by loneliness are the same genes that code for immune function and inflammation. So it's that much at the survival level. Strong social connections help us recover from disease faster and in general that leads to higher self-esteem and greater empathy. So if the fabric of our society has gaping holes, it's the strengthening our social connections that's really going to help and heal. There's wonderful phenomenon that happens that there's a very positive feedback loop so that people who have strong social connections are more trusting and cooperative. That's part of the outcome of having those. What's fascinating is that other people who then associate with them become more open to being trusting and cooperating. So it amplifies -- as you circle around, you get more people and more strong social ties and it builds towards a community with stronger connections and more resilience in the face of adversity. I don't know how many -- remember the book "Bowling Alone ". The author, Robert Putnam, looking at what he was seeing as America's declining social capital. He used bowling as an example of a time when bowling leagues and other kinds of civic activities were more common and more a place that brought people together who were groups that were more diverse in terms of class, race, ethnicity, cultural communities. By bringing them together to have that shared experience, it really promoted social connection among people who wouldn't otherwise be in the same space and especially because they were doing something that they enjoyed. So what Putnam was seeing back then, and I think we are seeing even more now, is more and more tendency to bowl alone. When that happens, we're not participating in the civic -- civic discussions. Loss of social capital. It's important to honor that ingredient when we start thinking about it in terms of self-care and beyond. >> BRENDA: Betha, do you know that I used to be in a bowling league. >> BETHA: I have no idea. What a perfect metaphor, then. >> BRENDA: The quote on this side, it's from a report called socially connected communities, solutions for social isolation. And I think Jennifer is going to put that in the chat if you want to take a look at it. It will also be on the resources page if you want to look at it later. But I think it's a really interesting report. The central focus of the report is that social isolation is really a systemic issue rather than an individual one. And for systemic issues, those require systemic solutions. And we're all part of that system. You know, whether we want to be or not, we're part of that system. Systemic issues are complex problems that are going to take collaborative efforts to change. And it's no individual or no organization can fix these things on their own. It's all so interconnected. But we can work on addressing the challenge of social isolation by weaving social well-being into our organizational cultures and into our communities. And I think this is an overall cultural shift that we're seeing, is the need for this, the need to prioritize this and something that we can look at from those three levels or layers that we're talking about throughout this session. We talked a little bit about self-care and people shared some of their self-care practices. In this session of course we're focusing on how important social connection is to our well-being. It's -- thinking about that as a systemic issue that we're all interconnected, that's moving into community care. And community care stems from this realization that we're interdependent and that we can care for each other too. So I think we can feel like self-care and community care are somehow mutually inclusive, that we can only practice self-care when we're able to disconnect from others, but that self-care doesn't really work -- however, self-care doesn't really work without community care. We need both of them. And so we're going to explore this interdependence between the two things a bit more. First by looking at our workplaces and then by looking at our communities too. So the slide says bringing self-care to the workplace. But it's about community care too. Our workplaces as a community, our workplaces as part of the community. So info people hosted a webinar. Some of you may have participated. But it is called "we are not OK" and it focused on the experiences of library staff, especially in the past few years, the trauma or the difficulty of some of those experiences. It's in the resources for this session too, if you want to watch it and have lots of great ideas about how we need this systemic change, part of this cultural shift. This is a quote from Veronda Pitchford in the session. She said, it's about taking the humanity with which we serve communities, we and libraries, and turning that inward to also thinking about the staff and taking care of the staff and creating a place of care for staff also. It's like that -- you know, of course the oxygen mask on an airplane thing. That if we're going to support and serve our communities, we need to be coming from a place of strength and well-being ourselves. And this is where I think we can't just think of self-care as something that we do on the weekend or on our days off, although of course that -- those are good times for it too. But I don't think it can be limited to something we do outside of work hours, but needs to be something that's part of our workplace environments too. And Noah lendstra, he posts great resources on places, including through WebJunction. He studies how libraries support healthy living in their communities. He's assistant professor at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. I'll read a quote from him. But a theme in his research is that when library staff feel like their institution cares for them and provides them with resources and support for self-care, those staff are in turn excited to pass it on by sharing resources with patrons in the communities they serve. So, again, these are systemic issues and there are big actions and small actions that are needed. I guess allocation of resources would be an example of a big action, being underfunded and overextended is not good for our well-being. Big actions and being a voice advocating for these big changes, but there are also the small actions too. So asking people how they are doing. If you're a manager, checking with your team to ask people how they are doing. If you're in a small library and maybe the only staff person looking for those supports that you need, those supports and connections that you need to, there's reciprocity in this. >> BETHA: Again, in this session, one of the things we're specifically focusing on is social connection and how it contributes to our well-being. And we can get that of course from our workplaces too, feeling part of something, feeling satisfaction. It can bring a sense of security that contributes to our well-being. And if you have an inclusive workplace culture, if you feel a sense of belonging at work, that can P contribute to well-being. If we think about the components of a workplace that prioritizes staff well-being -- so sometimes that's friendships at work, people you enjoy, maybe people who make you laugh, that of course can help with well-being. But to have a culture that really fosters well-being and staff care, it goes beyond that. Some of the things that I can think of that contribute to this are leadership, making it clear that staff well-being is a priority. Other things include normalizing mental health and talking about our mental well-being. Asking people how they are doing, listening to one another, trust is certainly core too, encouraging people to use their vacation days, their sick time, and having positive social experiences can help too. So different things that can contribute to that staff well-being. So this -- at this point we would love to hear from you about this too. What ideas do you have, maybe things that you have done or things that you are thinking about doing, things to support connection and well-being for library staff? So go ahead and share in the chat that too, anything that you have done in your library. Fun committee, book club with colleagues, pizza day. Nice. Those social experiences together -- it can also be things like we talked about, just making your place a culture where people set boundaries, making that part of people really recognizing their capacity, what they have the capacity to do and setting boundaries around that, is another thing. So social events, game night, virtual lunches. Betha, do you have things that come to mind for you on this one? >> BETHA: Well, one idea -- I know I said my self-care is around gardening. That's been very solo. One way to make it more social and knowing that I'm -- our office is still working from home, we have a gardener's club that meets once a month and we talk about what's growing and what isn't growing. So that's a way that I was able to socialize something that was otherwise very solo. And that brings up for me -- I just wanted to acknowledge here that really developing this workplace well-being culture, it's ideal if you have administrative buy-in, if this is coming from leadership and coming from the supervision and the people who have more control over really changing a workplace culture. But I want to acknowledge that's just not reality for a lot of people where that's not happening. I know there are workplaces that are outright toxic. So thinking about what can people -- library staff do at the grassroots level, what are some small steps that you can do to just make you and maybe some of your colleagues move a little bit better toward this workplace well-being? So starting with can you build some restoration breaks into your work day, can you take five minutes and do chair yoga, can you take five minutes and step outside? What kinds of things can you do to add that into your workday, especially if you're starting to feel the stress build up? Another thing might be let's say you accomplish something and you feel really good about it and nobody is acknowledging it. Certainly your supervisor isn't giving you a high five. Give yourself a high five. Take a little internal victory lap. If you feel good about it, acknowledge that to yourself. That goes a long way toward just microinsertion of a little bit more of a positive feeling into your workday. It's very potentially very helpful to have a checklist, an everyday self-care checklist, so a list of these kinds of things that you can do that you can -- when you start to feel that stress, look at your checklist, OK, is there something on that list I can do right now, nobody else will notice, but it will make me feel incrementally better. I think a valuable, like, small thing to do grassroots level is to support each other, list of check-in questions that remind you to go over to a colleague and say "how is it going for you today? Is that situation particularly challenging? What is it work that you were probably going to take home with you? Let's talk about it and see what we can do" -- knowing these are microsteps, but adding them up together can make a difference in your culture. I see there was a question, what kind of checklist. This is something that you would make for yourself. So imagine a list with, you know, the check boxes on the side, have I asked a colleague how they are doing today, have I taken a five-minute break, did I have an opportunity to take half of my lunch break and go outside and get some fresh air and change my environment -- this is something I need my own checklist -- did I remember to ease my eye stress and take two or three minutes occasionally and look at a longer focal -- that kind of thing is what I'm talking about. Make your own checklist because, like self-care, it's going to be individual. But involving your colleagues as much as you can so you feel supported, even though you don't feel supported from higher up. Right. I just -- we are our own best resource. So I really appreciate everything that's being shared here in the chat. Well, we've been -- Brenda has been talking about workplace care. We want to shift the focus to broaden that sense of community care to the populations served by the library, recognizing that our workplace is a community, it's a community that we participate in regularly on an ongoing basis. But this, like, making that broader, it really fits with that very strong sense in the library field of doing something purposeful that benefits community. I think that's what drives much of what we do in a very positive way. Some would contend it can really turn the corner. But it is such a deep motivation in the library field that this really fits. The challenge is how to keep the thread of what sustains and renews you in your self-care and maybe your workplace and expand that into something that renews and supports your community members as well. So this section might be most meaningful for some of you who struggle with finding connection in your workplace. You may not have a sense of belonging. You may feel like you're in a distinct minority. It might be a minority of one because any number of factors. Maybe gender identity, race, ethnicity. So making this leap from self-care directly to your community and looking outside to the community to find affinity groups, find that place where you belong and find to care each other beyond the workplace, that could be a very powerful way to expand your personal self-care. I am still very enamored of this bill. "Palaces for the People" by Eric Klinenberg with that wonderful subtitle, how social infrastructure can help fight inequality, polarization, and the decline of civic life. Wow. It's not just about libraries by any stretch. But he definitely celebrates the public library as powerful infrastructure that has the potential to do those things. He says when people -- social connections and relationships inevitably and spontaneously group. So echoes of Robert Putnam and bowling alone and having the power -- having people together, doing something enjoyable. >> BRENDA: I love that book too. It's one that I think about a lot. So libraries of course already do so much to contribute to community care. If we focus specifically on the things libraries do and with that social connection piece, things that libraries do to contribute to our social connection, what are some of the things that come to mind that we do? It could be intergenerational programming, maybe. Or maybe some of the spaces in the library are designed so that people can collaborate or connect with one another. Those sorts of things. So what are the things that we do in our libraries to support meaningful social connection programs, what are the things that we do to improve trust or to strengthen sense of belonging and community? I think it's important to recognize that we're not starting from scratch with this. And I also think it's important to recognize that we're not alone, but that, instead, we're part of a network of assets and resources. And there's a report -- another report that you might find -- sorry -- might find interesting. This one is from IMLS. A study funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services. I researched the way libraries and museums contribute to social well-being. If you get a chance to browse through this or look through that executive summary, even, it highlights not only how important library core services are for well-being and library programming, how that contributes to social well-being too, but another thing that's really clear in the report is how important the partnerships and networking that libraries do is for the social being of their communities. So I think that that's important that a key role that libraries play is connecting individuals and groups and organization, playing that role of connector or catalyst. So I think that's so important as we think about community care and contributing to community care, that it -- libraries are not solely responsible for this, but we're part of a network of resources that exist. >> BETHA: So we've been talking at a higher level somewhat theoretically. I always like to get down on the ground and look at very practical examples of what this looks like in reality. So we're going to run through some really quick and then we're going to do some innovative thinking together. So first example, StoryWalks. Every library is doing StoryWalks, especially during the pandemic. It was a great way to extend the literacy outside of the closed library. But this particular example comes from the public library in New York where the youth services coordinator, Julie -- I'm not going to say her last name because I would butcher it. She wanted to take the basic format of the StoryWalk and do something and put a little different spin on it. So she set it up in the -- along the wooded trails behind her library with a couple of intentional outcomes. One, it gets anybody of any age outdoors and doing some very manageable exercise for many people. But even more importantly I love the way she took her self-care and translated it to the community. This is what she said about it. She said, I have used the trails myself and always thought they were so beautiful. So I thought having a StoryWalk back there would be a great opportunity for the community as well. A second example is around a lot of started crafting and creating things as a form of self-care or maybe continued what they were already doing. It's such an excellent way to refocus energy, have something that you can really concentrate on and take you out of your woes. Also, create -- end up with something. It's productive, it's satisfying. Often, this kind of activity is even more fun when done with other people. Just think of all the knitting groups and the knit nights. But taking it even to a further level and getting into compassionate making -- this is something I learned about through a school library, GINa Seymour has an excellent website that you can go into great detail in understanding about compassionate making. It's the satisfaction of creating something, it's the social connection of doing it with other people and it's that sense of purpose connection that you are doing something truly beneficial. The example here is selecting fun and colorful and playful fabrics and making shower caps for hospitalized kids. >> BRENDA: I love that example. We're seeing great examples shared in the chat too. But I mentioned yoga earlier, which has been my self-care choice lately. To me, it's such a good example of something contributive to our well-being that we can really weave into those three focuses of self and workplace and community. So could be something you do on your own, even during your workday. So there are things -- stretches you can do our desk or yoga, things that you can do with your breathing, just, you know, for a couple of minutes during the workday at your desk. I have seen staff yoga, libraries doing staff yoga with staff doing it as a stress reliever, promoting that medical mental, physically health. Could be a full yoga class. It could be during storytime, incorporating a little bit of yoga with the kids in storytime. I think it's a great example also of those different ways to weave this between those different things. It's an example of something that can include the social elements and it's also an example of something that can be about connecting with others. Also, it's an example of something where I don't think the library has to be responsible for actually delivering the yoga training, although the -- if you're doing it during storytime -- full yoga class, who could offer that -- just being in the network. >> We have been talking about lots of ideas, sharing specific examples. We're going to do a mental stretch for innovative thinking, so a little bit of brainstorming to talk about this. So we're going to use brainstorming rules. We'll do this in the chat. You can't be visual in the chat, but you can maybe thinking about things -- think about things visually and put in the chat. We're going to come up with innovative ideas related to this. Grace said this is a time, I think, of a cultural shift that we're part of. So we're all just kind of moving in new directions and thinking about new possibilities with this. So we have a couple of topics that we're going to focus on for this activity. Our first one is cooking. So if we tie all of this together, the different things we've been talking about -- both the three types of care -- self-care, care in the workplace, and community care. We also want to think about building on the assets in your community, who can help, who can you partner with to make things happen. So we're going to do a little brainstorming related to this. So this is someone who, as they think about self-care, food is any love language. That's their -- what contributes to their sense of well-being. So we're going to start on the left. Before we start brainstorming actual ideas for programs or things we can do, think about someone for whom food is their love language. Maybe you know someone like this, maybe you are someone like this. What are some of those emotions or feelings connected to food and cooking? Cozy. I love that word. Cozy. I think Jennifer is going to put some on the slide. First of all, think about the feelings with food and cooking. Together. Warm. Being in control. Good. >> BETHA: Generosity. I like that one. >> BRENDA: Yes. >> BETHA: Sense of giving. >> BRENDA: This is based on me. This is my -- it really does feel like my love language. It's a thing that -- I feel helpful. It's something I can do for people. >> BETHA: I like experimental. That's a really great aspect. >> BRENDA: Uh-huh. >> BETHA: Happiness, of course. >> BRENDA: Another thing for me is that it makes me feel connected to my grandma, who I used to cook with a lot. So every time I'm peeling potatoes or trimming green bean, I have this visceral feeling of being connected to my grandma. Connected to my culture, connected to my home. There's that too. >> BETHA: Rejuvenating. There are a lot of things that refer to nurturing, nourishment, it's an act of service and provision. Again, exploration. >> BRENDA: Nostalgia. Appreciated. >> BETHA: It looks like people -- well, people have already been jumping to solutions, which there's really wonderful ones in there. Maybe we can move into that side of the board. >> BRENDA: Absolutely. So look at those feelings and emotions and use those as the springboard for brainstorming, which as Betha said, people have already started. >> BETHA: Food is love. >> BRENDA: Think about that. Let's pull from the feelings and emotions and think about how could our community experience this together. So it could be a library program, it could be something in your own life if, you know, part of your self-care, part of the belonging and connection that can be part of your own self-care. I'm seeing recipe exchange, spice of the month kits. So many good ideas. Betha, if you see any -- >> BETHA: The cooking competition. Earlier there was one about best recipe competition, like what's the best fried chicken. I don't remember the specific example, but you can get people into some heated and heartfelt exchanges around what's the best. All about what's the chocolate chip cookie recipe. >> BRENDA: Things for staff -- >> BETHA: Dessert contest. Food court Fridays. Bring food for patrons once a month to show our thanks. Oh, I love that. That's beautiful. A comfort food cookbook. Yes. Everybody has their own interpretation of comfort food. It's very personal and shareable. >> Cookie contest. >> BETHA: I love the connection between food and gardening. Oh, recipe bookmarks. That's very cool. Cookie jar gifts. Wow. And there were many ideas that were popping in much earlier that will be captured in chat, but they flew by before I could capture them in my mind. >> BRENDA: Again, thinking about the connections in the community. Who could you connect with to help make some of these things happen? Someone mentioned local restaurants donating staff lunches, providing staff lunches, which is lovely. I think we talked about connection to culture and I think it's a way of sharing culture with one another. So introducing someone to your culture. >> BETHA: Thinking about along those lines how do you empower community members to initiate the sharing. You know, maybe they have something they want to share with a larger community and the library is a place that can facilitate it as that social infrastructure, but you as library staff don't always have to be the ones coming up with the idea. >> BRENDA: Should we do our second one? >> BETHA: Let's move on to the next one. I'm never disappointed by the innovative thinking that happens in these situations. >> BRENDA: This second one is a little bit trickier. I'll be curious to see what people come up with. >> BETHA: I wanted one that was more challenging. This was self-care from a library staff person who attended one of our early pandemic town hall -- COVID town halls. So this is a real thing. This person, when asked what they were doing for self-care said, I like to dye my hair different colors. It's hard to come up with programming around that, so we're going to be circumvent the linear thinking and focus on the left side of the screen. Oh, we're getting great answers already. It's about being individualistic and self-esteem, celebrating individuality, self-image, rebellious -- it's about being authentic, coming out of your comfort zone, brave, artistic. These are just so right on. Just expanding -- it's not just I dyed my hair rainbow colors, but all of these things that may be motivations, emotions, feelings. Being original. Responding to just being bored. It's a conversation starter. It's very nontypical. Oh, interesting. About being invisible or maybe moving out of being invisible. Bringing bright colors into life. Yeah, this is so -- it's -- it's just so rewarding to me to see all this that you are coming up with. It's very embedded in what seems like a simple self-care statement. So I think we're ready to move over to the right column and now think about what kind of community experience could embody these emotions and these motivations. I said circumvent linear thinking. Linear thinking might be we're going to bring together and they are going to dye their hair, that will be too messy, we can't do that. So think around that, look at the emotions. Have a contest. Contests are surprisingly motivating and getting people really involved. Purple hair day. Or you could have a different color hair day, the day of the week. A collaborative art project. This is great. We're not necessarily focused on hair dyeing. We're just talking about that creativity and collaboration. Express yourself day. So we're really focusing on how can you foster people in a community to express themselves and empower that self-esteem. Tie dye projects. These are flying by. What am I missing, Brenda? >> BRENDA: Celebrate natural hair. Tie dye. Henna tattoos. Makeup artists. Murals. I think you maybe already said that one. >> BETHA: These are just really wonderful, wonderful ideas. There was one above -- program combining hair decorating with Easter egg decorating. That's fun. Paint your hair with Easter egg dyes. And a minimalist wardrobe. >> BRENDA: Celebrating gray hair. Another good one. Tattoos. >> BETHA: Wow. >> BRENDA: Braiding. Different styles. >> BETHA: These are just really a wealth of wonderful, wonderful ideas. I love when it's getting into the design a mural and then bringing community together to actually create it and paint it. I really like murals that come together in small pieces, like tiles that you can assemble and you've got some amazing large-scale artwork. Sidewalk chalk contests. That's very doable and very expressionistic. Silly hair day. Face painting party. Pixel art creation. I'm not sure how that works, but I'm intrigued. I would go to that program. Dad hair day. That's great. Go along with dad joke day. Dad hair and bring a joke with you. This is just -- this is great. This will all be captured in chat. So all the things that we missed. But, Jennifer, JP, thanks for doing a stellar job of transcribing onto the screen. >> BRENDA: I think it's dads like learning how to braid and -- >> BETHA: Oh. I was picturing variations of stay-at-home dad hair or work-from-home dad hair. This is great. OK. Well, don't want to lose time to have some reflection period. So I'm going to move us ahead. This is all going to be preserved in chat. Brenda, if you want to just do a quick recap. >> BRENDA: Sure. So we're close to the end of session. We wanted to recap what we've covered. So, again, our focus in this session has been on social connection and its role in our self-care and in our community care, including our workplace communities. These are reciprocal things. If we practice self-care, we can contribute, but also thinking about building these supports -- it's a reciprocal thing. When there's care in the workplace, when there's care in the community that we can draw from self-care -- they are systemic things. So we're all part of the system. These are complex problems that require collaborative efforts to change. So we're not going to fix these things on our own, but it's all interconnected and can contribute by weaving this well-being into our organizational cultures and into our communities too. >> BETHA: So we wanted to wrap up and take some time for reflection on what you've been hearing today, how the ideas are sort of circling around in your head, and really focus on how will you retain your own well-being. We started from self-care, what makes you as individuals feel better, ease your stress, restore your self-esteem. How are you going to preserve that while then contributing to community care or thinking of designing these programs? A lot of those -- I had a smile on my face during both of those brainstorms because there was so much fun embedded in your program ideas, which tells me there is -- you are a thinking of caring over that element of self-care and what feels good to you into this kind of programming. But, yes, so Alicia, thanks for starting this off. I encourage you to post in chat just how you're thinking about how you're going to continue to care for yourself, continue to set some boundaries and be clear about what makes sense for you while you're also thinking about what might work for the library, how you're working with other staff. Jennifer, I'll ask are there any questions that we can respond to at this point? >> JENNIFER: I haven't seen questions of great comment about doing the craft too, while the patrons are doing crafts, if you have a craft program, make sure you do the craft too. Usually we're running around trying to take care of everything. But sitting down and doing it with them is a great way to link community care with your self-care. But feel free to post questions as we work through the final minutes here. If you have specific questions for Brenda or Betha or for the group, be sure to post those to everyoneeveryone. >> BETHA: That was a perfect example -- do the craft yourself. It started from something you like to do, so do it with the community and you'll be feeling that social connection with them. >> BRENDA: Kind of related to that, there was someone mentioned earlier they are a library director, but sometimes they go and participate or are part of the programming happening in the children's area just because it feels good to do that. That's a great example too. >> BETHA: I'm noting that a lot of these comments are about increasing your workplace well-being, which is fantastic. That's just really a great direction to be going. And I like Melissa's comment -- try to remember when something goes wrong, that you are surrounded by good staff and colleagues. It's a blessing if you are. Maybe find the people that are in your environment that will help you feel the best and help you restore your sense of being -- well-being. So I think in terms of how you keep this sense of well-being when you're doing community programming -- and I like the great comments, start with the feelings, emotions -- think about how it makes you, yourself, feel, which real impetus to then communicating that to group that you are working with, communicating that through the program. And just to think about reducing the burden on yourself. Who can you partner with to share the effort, because we know when you're planning a program or executing a program, there's a lot of logistics. Somebody has to take the lead in scheduling and reserving space and promoting and all that. So who can you partner with outside the library or even within? Who's going to help alleviate the burden on you, yourself. And how can you empower community members to contribute to or even create some of these programs that then you would be a participant doing something fun that you like? I like the two questions after participating in a program or workshop, what did you do for yourself recently and what will you do for yourself after you leave. That's a great question. I'll throw it to all of you. >> BRENDA: Especially the second part. The first one I feel we did brainstorming with people -- for self-care. Any ideas for something you can do after you leave here? Something for self-care. Something for community care. Something -- >> BETHA: I love this observation of paying attention to the community members who are participating in this program so that you really -- observing and understanding how they received it and maybe think about how you might iterate on it. Yes, let's all breathe. >> BRENDA: I see a question about if you find large groups uncomfortable, what would you recommend for the connection piece? I think that's a great point. That connection piece and belonging and doing activities with others, it -- you can get that from -- some people, I think, get that from large groups. But often I think it really is from a small group activity. A few people getting together doing something or partnering up and doing something. So it doesn't -- I think often it does not have to be the large group. >> BETHA: I think in large groups people tend to sort themselves out into the people they came with, maybe family members. So there are a lot of ideas out in sort of instructor or training world about icebreakers. So just ways and strategies to get people to break into smaller groups, maybe pair up and do some kind of activity or -- there are all kinds of games we don't have time to go into here. But start to think about, instead of thinking everyone is going to show up and just start spontaneously connecting, maybe there are these games and strategies you can devise to get them to mingle. How do you as the host help people connect with each other? Usually it's small groups or one on one or groups of three. I hope that helps. >> One thing that I feel has been powerful learning for me is my daughter often thanks people she's interacting with -- like if we're at a store or restaurant, she will say, thank you so much, we appreciate you. And just that simple little acknowledgment in, you know, other spaces or if we do it with our patrons, you know, thank you so much, we appreciate you, reminding the community that we appreciate them can even just be that simple connection to our own well-being and certainly creating that culture of staff well-being by, you know, accommodating better interactions with our community as well helps to boost our staff as well. So I just love that simple action and I'm so grateful that she's taught me that. >> BETHA: That's beautiful. I'll just express my gratitude for everybody here in the room today, all of your wonderful ideas and your reflections and your attention to this important topic. >> BRENDA: Yes. Thank you all. >> Wonderful. >> BRENDA: Excited -- >> Go ahead. >> BRENDA: I'm excited to have the chat because I feel like there were so many good things there. >> Yes. Thank you so much to everyone for being so interactive in chat. Yes, the chat will be available so you can review further beyond the things that we have captured in the recording. Yes, thank you so much. >> BETHA: Can I add quickly that you are all invited and welcome to e-mail either or both of us. These are the e-mails on the screen. >> Wonderful. Thank you, Brenda and Betha, so very much. I feel my shoulders have relaxed just while we've been meeting today. So this community together, thank you to all of you who have contributed to today's session and to our captioner as well. A reminder that I will send you all an e-mail later today once the recording and the chat and resources are updated on that event page. I'll also automatically send you all an e-mail -- sorry -- a certificate next week for attending today. I'm also sending you as you leave to a very short survey. You can complete it now or I'll give you a link in the e-mail I send you. We appreciate your feedback on our programs. We share that with our presenters and it helps us in our ongoing planning. So thank you so much. Everyone have a fantastic rest of your day and week and month and we look forward to seeing you at our next webinar. Thank you again, Brenda and Betha. >> BRENDA: Thank you. Bye. >> BETHA: Thank you. Bye, everyone.