Team Care for the Care Team
About the project
This project explored how members of the “care team,” healthcare workers who take care of older adults in long-term care centres, took care of each other relationally through “team care” during a period of crisis. Team care can falter due to lack of interpersonal trust and fewer opportunities for relational connection when team composition is unstable, roles and responsibilities are unclear, and communication protocols are constantly changing. When this happens, team members may experience emotional vulnerability and compassion trauma yet feel isolated and alone. Fortunately, teams can also create relationally supportive, compassionate spaces that allow members to express vulnerability and seek and receive support from one another. For team care to be sustainable, the care team requires compassionate leadership and organisational and institutional support.
Team Care for the Care Team: Testimonials and Recommendations
This video portrays the experiences of collaborating in residential care facilities during the Covid-19 pandemic. It explains “team care for the care team,” the relational and compassionate dimensions of team communication that can sustain team members through difficult times. It also explains how contextual factors can help or hinder team care.
Tools
Definition of Team Care
Healthcare workers faced significant challenges even before COVID‑19, and the pandemic further intensified stress, burnout, and compassion fatigue. Team care—compassionate, relationship‑centered collaboration—supports resilience by fostering mutual support at individual, team, and organizational levels, ensuring sustainable well‑being and quality care during crises and beyond.
Exploring the phenomenon of vulnerability avoidance
In crises, vulnerability avoidance leads coworkers to hide distress and overlook others’ suffering, offering short‑term coping but long‑term burnout and loss of trust. Team care counters this through NEAR—Noticing, Empathizing, Assessing, and Responding—practices that foster compassionate communication, reflection, and organizational support before, during, and after crises.
The Team Care Thermostat
Team care functions like a self‑regulating thermostat: when pressure rises, coworkers step in to support one another through listening, validation, and shared vulnerability. This reciprocity builds psychological safety and resilience. But when stress is too intense or prolonged, team care reaches its limit and must be backed by organizational support.
Research team
Kirstie McAllum, Ph.D
- Regular Researcher, CREGÉS
- Associate Professor, University of Canterbury, Media and Communication
Contact: [email protected]
Stephanie Fox, PhD
- Associate Professor, Université de Montréal, Département de communication
Contact: [email protected]
Mélanie Couture, PhD
- Regular Researcher, CREGÉS
- Associate Professor, Université de Sherbrooke, École de travail social (School of Social Work)
Contact: [email protected]
Darla Fortune, PhD
- Regular Researcher, CREGÉS
- Associate Professor, Concordia University, Applied Human Sciences
Contact: [email protected]
Kelley Kilpatrick, RN, PhD
-
Associate Professor, McGill University, Susan E. French Chair in Nursing Research & Innovative Practice, Ingram School of Nursing
Contact: [email protected]
Funding
This research project was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).
This research project was funded by the Fonds de recherche du Québec
Team Care for the Care Team: A Scoping Review of the Relational Dimensions of Collaboration in Healthcare Contexts
Foregrounding the Relational Dimensions of Interprofessional Collaboration: A Communication Perspective
McAllum, K., Fox, S., Ginoux, L., & Meyer, L. (2025). Foregrounding the relational dimensions of Interprofessional Collaboration: A Communication perspective. In Interprofessional communication in health and social care. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-70106-1
