The concept of care

Recently, I attended the Art in Bloom exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) in Boston. Art in Bloom is one of my favorite annual events that presents floral interpretations of museum works. While enjoying these floral arrangements, I found myself in a room about Tender Loving Care. The artwork and inscriptions within this exhibition struck a chord with me:

“Care structures our day to day lives. We care for and receive care from other people, places-even things. But what it looks like for each of us can differ in surprising and sometimes conflicting ways  ...  ”. To care can mean to have a fondness or attachment for someone or something; to preserve or to comfort; to feel interest or concern ...  ” (1).

Work is interconnected with the concept of care in many ways. That is, working in caring professions such as healthcare workers who inherently provide care or caregiving of others such as a child with special needs. We read of the importance of self-care for creating a work-life balance fostered by working in a caring culture where you feel valued; and we’ve all experienced customer care and its impact on our day-to-day lives. The Tender Loving Care exhibition served as a reminder that work transcends tasks and goals; it’s fundamentally about human connections and interactions.

This issue contains 25 papers and the Return-to-Work Corner focused on Disability disclosure as an impression management technique used in the workplace: A grounded theory investigation. The Editor’s Choice paper is Towards identifying gaps in employment integration of people living with vision impairment: A scoping review authored by Tosin Omonye Ogedengbe, Mahadeo Sukhai, and Walter Wittich. The authors concluded after conducting this scoping review that there is “the need to examine the readiness of the work environment ...  because environmental factors can be modified according to the functional needs of people with vision impairment”. This underscores the importance of creating a caring supportive work environment.

I hope you are thoroughly enjoying the Learn at WORK podcast episodes as much as I am enjoying moderating them! Please learn about the careers and personal reflections of authors whose scholarly work you have been reading by going to: workjournal.org.

All my best,

Founding Editor-in-Chief, WORK

Occupational therapist & ergonomist

blogs.bu.edu/kjacobs/