Burnout and lack of self-care are two common concerns for health care workers, who are often siloed into departments that don’t regularly interact with other teams across the organization. KKV created the Pathways program more than five years ago to create an intentional engagement between staff from different departments.  The idea behind it was to introduce people, talk story, and learn how to work as a larger KKV team. 

Today, Pathways continues and functions for many staff as a kind of onboarding program. Each three-month training program engages cohorts of fifteen to twenty people from across KKV. It is an opportunity for dentists, physicians, and MAs, for example, to learn together with staff from KKV’s extensive community programs. 

 Joel Tome, KKV’s Pathways leader, is the Education Coordinator responsible for staff development and learning opportunities across KKV.  He joined KKV in 2019 after graduating from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa with a Master of Public Health degree. Joel has helped to guide Pathways through the COVID pandemic, where meetings went from in-person and hands-on to taking a pause and since late 2021, back to eight in-person sessions. Joel’s passion for education is evident when he comments on the value of Pathways for recent participants: “I can tell it was much needed on their part, and that it helped them so much to find their kuleana and know how to work with staff from other departments…I would love for all of KKV staff to go through this at one point because it’s a great way to collaborate.” 

Pathways uses a condensed version of the Waiwai program (a summer career development program for youth meaning in Hawaiian “abundance and wealth in all its forms”) that allows staff members to experience working in different departments. In a recent cohort, one staff member was extremely excited to complete the Waiwai program. She felt slightly burnt out doing the same thing daily, so Waiwai offered a change of perspective that helped her recognize her passion for healing.

Pathways creates opportunities for new partnerships across KKV.  The program made it natural during the first year of the COVID pandemic for staff to pivot toward a  coordinated response—such as setting up telehealth or assembling meals or packages of food. Meeting different members of our KKV community from new to longtime staff is beneficial to everyone and not only helps to reenergize and alleviate burnout, but also allows people to learn to care for themselves and each other.