SOAR (Supporting One Another to Rise)
Supporting One Another to Rise, or SOAR, is a team of trained peers who provide supportive care through active listening and empathy to colleagues involved in an emotionally traumatic event. UK HealthCare is committed to maintaining a healthy work environment, and SOAR offers peer support and other resources to our employees.
Our team
The SOAR team is made up of volunteers from a variety of disciplines. The team includes physicians, nurses, chaplains, social workers and others. Each peer supporter has been trained in crisis support and stress management and were selected because of their high level of competence and their commitment to helping you.
How the SOAR team can help
- Provide a safe zone to express thoughts and reactions to enhance coping.
- Ensure that information is strictly confidential.
- Provide one-on-one peer support or team support for a group, and explore the staff’s normal reactions and feelings that often occur after a stressful or emotionally traumatic event.
- Assess and make appropriate referrals to additional resources.
Who can benefit from SOAR
Any employee who experiences potentially traumatic workplace stress by his or her involvement in a stressful event.
Examples of traumatic events include patient death, preventable harm to a patient or multiple patients with bad outcomes within a short period of time.
Common reactions to a stressful event
Physical symptoms include sleep disturbance, difficulty concentrating, eating disturbance, headache, fatigue, diarrhea, nausea or vomiting, rapid heart rate, rapid breathing, and muscle tension.
Psychological symptoms include isolation, frustration, fear, grief or remorse, feeling uncomfortable returning to work, anger and irritability, depression, extreme sadness, self-doubt, and flashbacks.
Fill out encounter form
If you or someone you know has experienced an emotionally traumatic event and would like to speak with a trained SOAR peer supporter, please fill out the confidential Encounter Form. The Program Coordinator will contact you with further information.
Become a volunteer peer supporter
Are you interested in becoming a SOAR volunteer peer supporter? Fill out and submit our Volunteer Peer Supporter Form.
Contact us
For more information about the SOAR program, please contact us at:
859-323-7627 (SOAR)
ukhcsoar@uky.edu.