Humanizing Inquiry into Care-Provider Burn-Out

"Cooking and Gardening with Care-Givers of Elders with Dementia: Humanizing Inquiry into Care-Provider Burn-Out" brings together researchers from the humanities and sustainability studies, and it seeks to network with others on campus whose research into environmental and mindful practices are being leveraged to address compassion fatigue of caregivers and support high-quality memory of care of elders. The ecology of elder care takes place at the margin of our industrialized society. In assisted living facilities, aging elders—often facing dementia—finish their years under the care of low-income employees, many of whom are first-generation immigrants. This project seeks to explore holistic, relational approaches to dementia care that counter the mind-body, human-nature, self-other split infused in these important, wide-spread, and often invisible relationships in which human care is a multi-billion dollar industry. Engaging with care-givers in gardening and cooking practices, this project proposes this hands-on mode of humanistic inquiry as an antidote to care-provider burn-out.