Traditional Values Guide SCF’s Core Concepts

In the Native Community, Elders and traditional values serve as a compass for a healthy lifestyle. We learn to listen to each other, to share our story, to laugh and to honor ourselves and others. Many of these values are experienced at the heart of Southcentral Foundation’s Core Concepts, which create an acronym that spells WELLNESS. SCF’s Core Concepts ensure the organization is achieving its mission and vision to work together with the Native Community and to achieve whole-person wellness.

SCF’s Core Concepts is not only a corporate ideology, but also a required training for all employees to provide foundational tools to build relationships. Essentially, the training is a comprehensive explanation of how to respect others. The Core Concepts training provides communication tools, including best practices to listen and respond to story, which is heavily tied to Alaska Native and American Indian culture. Moreover, Core Concepts develops an understanding of your own story, how it may impact relationships, relational styles and the value of compassion and empathy. With this understanding, SCF employees learn the value of different approaches to relationships.

When SCF employees learn how to respect and empathize with peers and customer-owners, we can continuously improve customer service at SCF through an emphasis on teamwork and collaborative decision-making. Based on a SCF study that looked at customer-owner quality of care (n=2,126), customer-owners who report having a strong relationship with primary care provider are more likely to report they have a strong health rating. Additionally, the likelihood of a strong health reporting increases with an increase in provider empathy.

Core Concepts also encourages SCF employees to engage fully in their jobs and the people they work with, which also increases positive outcomes across the organization. Based on a 2015 SCF organizational employee satisfaction survey (n=1,506), data suggests SCF employees who felt supervisors use Core Concepts also indicated a higher satisfaction with their supervisor. Additionally, based on a 2016 employee engagement survey (n=1,610), 61 percent of SCF employees indicated Core Concepts improved their relationships with their coworkers.

“[Core Concepts] helps me appreciate people – their personalities and the reminder that everyone has a story,” a Core Concepts participant explained. “It helps me treat others with kindness and understanding. Everyone is fighting a battle at some point.”

SCF’s Core Concepts

• Work together in relationship to learn and grow
• Encourage understanding
• Listen with an open mind
• Laugh and enjoy humor throughout the day
• Notice the dignity and value of ourselves and others
• Engage others with compassion
• Share our stories and our hearts
• Strive to honor and respect ourselves and others

SCF’s Core Concepts training objectives

• Understanding your relational style
• Understanding how your experiences contribute to how you approach others
• Understand the power of empathy and compassion for yourself and others
• Align your aspirations, intentions and behaviors
• Understand how you can create shared vision conversations
• Understand the impact of intentions
• Understand how to listen effectively
• Understand how good dialogue and productive conversations will affect SCF
• Explore tools for having good conversations