Capturing Essence for Care: Storytelling that Promotes Personhood in Healthcare

18. How To End The Loss Of Tradition: Recording Personal Histories To Build Connection Across Generations With Anika Chabra

• Lisa Joworski, Life Story Resource and Digital Storytelling Facilitator • Episode 18

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Show Description

Anika Chabra is Co-Founder of Root & Seed, a simple and game-like platform on a mission to bring storytelling back to where it belongs, between generations, across kitchen tables, in workplaces and in caregiver and elder interactions. After two decades in the corporate world, Anika knew there had to be a better way to preserve the essence of who we are, our cultures, our traditions, our recipes, and our relationships.

In this episode we explore how personal stories can preserve culture, deepen connection, and transform caregiving, with Anika. From conversation cards to secure audio keepsakes, we share practical ways to honour personhood across home care and healthcare.

Key Takeaways

  • The origin of Root & Seed and its mission to end the loss of tradition
  • grief, mixed identity, and why family stories matter
  • how conversation cards and a QR-powered app work together
  • examples of intergenerational connection that build empathy
  • training caregivers to use stories during companion visits
  • benefits to person-centred care, activity planning, and morale
  • creating keepsakes from recorded stories for families
  • the role of spirituality and personhood in care decisions

Resources and Links:

Root & Seed - Digital and physical tools leverage light-hearted prompts to start the conversations that matter, and to honour the people and places that shaped us. What began as a bridge between generations of loved ones has grown to include caregivers, community members and colleagues too. Offering space for dignity, memory, and meaning to take root.

The CBC, Toronto Star and RepresentASIAN featured Root & Seed at launch, followed by Better Homes and Garden and Rolling Stone including R&S conversation cards as best gifts in their well-shopped 2023 and 2024 holiday gift guides. With recognition from AgeWell for fostering intergenerational bonds, The Webby Awards for a private and secure method of connection and The Anthem Awards for health-forward innovation, Root & Seed is carving out a human-first, technology-supported path in a digital world.

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Do you have a question or a topic related to "capturing essence for care" that you would like discussed on the podcast? Text the show using the link above or send Lisa an email: awestruckaspirations@gmail.com

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Intro and outro music with thanks: Upbeat and Sweet No Strings by Musictown

Lisa brings over 25 years of experience working in healthcare settings with older adults. The perspectives shared on this podcast are her own and do not represent the views of any past or current employer. Patient/resident stories are shared only with explicit permission or as anonymized composites for educational purposes.

Lisa:

Welcome to Capturing Essence for Care, where we discuss the importance of incorporating personal life stories into healthcare and share ideas to help you on your journey. I'm your host, Lisa Joworski. Hello everyone. Welcome to Capturing Essence for Care, this podcast where I get the opportunity to connect with incredible people doing amazing work and sometimes reconnect with people who I've met in the past and feel like it's worth introducing to the listeners. So today is one of those special opportunities, and I want to introduce you to Anika Chabra. She's co-founder of Root and Seed, a Toronto-based platform designed to connect generations and preserve family stories. Anika, I remember reaching out to you a few years ago because I had had this idea on creating conversation cards, which is besides the point, people can find that on my Etsy shop. But the the reason for that was the importance of connecting and recording stories. And I just love Root and Seed because you have that similar mission to record voices and to create opportunities for people to have deeper connections and better, meaningful conversations. So thank you for joining me today and sharing with our listeners.

Anika:

Lisa, you are just a gem. You are such a wonderful person. We have only had a chance to connect a couple of times, but even from the first time we met with you. And, you know, you're just such a great supporter of the entire industry, forget about just Root and Seed, and uh an advocate for just really honest, open conversations. And I was beyond thrilled when I thought, when I heard that you were going to um launch this podcast, I thought, what a better person than there really isn't a better person than you. So uh appreciate being uh one of your first guests.

Lisa:

Thank you. I appreciate that so much. It's nice to be able to collect all of these different ways that people are really driven to stress the importance of having conversations and really deeply listening to one another. And no matter how old we are, I know I, you know, I'm used to working with the older population and I see the wisdom and the experience that we can we can learn from that population, but it's also all of the generations, which I really appreciate that you focus on is every everyone, right? From from children to the whole family as a network and learning from each other, no matter how old you are. And so I'm hoping that maybe you can share a little bit more about root and seed as well as how it came to be in the first place.

Anika:

So I have to tell you a secret, Lisa, to begin with. Um, I don't know if you know this, but we, meaning myself and root and seed co-founder Jennifer Siripong Mandel, we never embarked upon Root and Seed with age technology or the aging population in mind. That is a big secret that I'm revealing, probably for the first time on your podcast. That's really interesting. Um yeah, so I'll be completely honest about uh about the mission, um, which still rings true today. We haven't changed it. Um, it's our Simon Sinek 'why', you know, the middle is the why, and then the what and then the how. And it's all about ending the loss of tradition. But because I was so focused and I was very much deeply in a state of grief, which I'll talk about in a moment, I saw the benefits to my generation, which was that sandwich generation and the younger generation. And the source of the information was the older generation. But it wasn't necessarily about benefiting the older generation as much as I love and obviously deeply respect those generations. I wouldn't be n doing what I do every day if I didn't. But I was selfish. I actually say that my journey to collect my own personal stories and personal family stories was probably the most selfish thing I've ever done because I had the person who was the source of my family ways of doing things, my family traditions, our recipes, um, you know, all that sort of institutional family knowledge was gone in an instance in my case because I lost my mom very suddenly. And so I was grasping, um, you know, they talk about things like secondary losses, and that that's something that was happening to me for sure, but I was grasping for some of the information and um, you know, set on this journey to really understand my family stories better, understand my mom's stories better, you know, through talking to her family members to talking to her brother and her sister and uh, you know, other people in India. And then my dad, oh gosh, my poor dad at 77, he had to like, I was like, Dad, you need to tell me everything. Right now, I'm writing everything down. Um, and so I embarked on a personal journey, like many people who've fallen into this industry and um, you know, studied this industry for for very personal reasons. And I know that grief is one reason why people want to understand their family stories, but uh, you know, Jennifer, my co-founder and Root and Seed's co-founder, you know, she was compelled to just understand her mixed background better. She comes from a Boston Irish and a Thai background, so she's mixed. And her children are also mixed because she's married to a Jewish man. So it's just, she has this wonderful cornucopia of all these different religions and and you know, ethnicities and cultures. And she really wanted to understand that better, like a lot of people who have come from like a very interesting mixed background. Um, and you know, those are only two reasons why people want to understand their family stories better. So I would say our journey started very much from a personal need and a desire to understand those stories better, uh, compelled by very different reasons. Um, and then we happened upon an application for Age Well's National Impact Challenge, which SC Health. And that's when it just was the beginning of us understanding that there's a whole industry out there, including you, uh and wonderful contributors who really put elder care at the centre of what they do, and they make sure that they're bringing, you know, I love the the fact that you're bringing human, you know, care back into the industry and all those narratives. And that's really when we started to understand that wow, there is actually empirical data, there is um research, there's all this wonderful information on the cognitive and physiological benefits of understanding your story as you become older. So that's a little like sneak into um into our journey from like something very selfish to something that has such tremendous impact across generations.

Lisa:

Wow. I love the fact that you didn't necessarily plan it to be that way, but you must have somehow heard about how important personhood is. And and somebody must have said, you need to bring this to age well. I'm guessing, is that fair to assume? Uh yeah, or would you find it yourself?

Anika:

Well, we just started to research. You know, at that time we were really trying to find funds, we were trying to apply to whatever we could. Um, and you know, I'll be honest, when when we were writing the application for Age Well and for SE Hell's National Impact Challenge in 2023, it was like the questions were made for us. We were like, this makes complete sense. Yes. So call it serendipity, call it whatever you want to call it, the universe. You put yourself out there. I don't know what you want to call it, Lisa. I don't know if you believe in any of that stuff or your listeners do, but it certainly felt like it was meant to be. Um, and so it wasn't even anyone introducing us. We just found this application in writing. Oh, and it just it was like it came right off the tip of our tongue, and it was beautiful.

Lisa:

That's so incredible. There's two things that stuck out for me. One being that um you mentioned about the sandwich generation. And I think I've just been thinking lately about how, you know, this podcast specifically is for, you know, I kind of break it down. It's for storytellers, it's for healthcare staff, it's for people who are interested in life story work. But ultimately, who it's for are people like you and I who are in that sandwich generation. And so I think that's the piece that connects everything is the fact that we are in this age group that we are caring for, possibly children and parents, and maybe not caring for in a you know daily activity, having to be involved every day, but just from a love point of view on the number of people that you you care for and care about, that you want to make sure that everybody's heard and listened to and valued and loved the way that you would love them. So I just wanted to put that out there that I think it's it's pretty neat that you have mentioned the sandwich generation. And I actually did a local TV show years ago called Learning for Love Lessons for Life. And it was about that for people in the sandwich generation. On how do you how do we keep our resilience, you know, when there's so many stressors that happen? Um, so uh yeah, I think there's something to be said about that. The second piece I just quickly wanted to mention is in the training that we do in dementia care, uh, we start with personhood. So your conversation questions and the cards and capturing the voice is really honouring personhood and helping us to humanize individuals and seeing them, which I know you know already, I'm telling you, nothing new. But the fact that we can see people as individuals, as unique beings rather than, you know, patient number or resident, you know, that we are all very unique. So I love that about Root and Seed. And so I wanted to highlight you and what you're doing because I think it's something that a lot of people still don't know about, that's a tool and a resource that could be really helpful when working with the older population, especially.

Anika:

Thank you for saying that. I would say um, you know, when you mentioned, you know, caring for people and knowing them through their ailments or through their disease or through whatever is going on with them, you know, I would say that even more so like knowing them as only an elder. Like they used to be that fun, loving, you know, person with no attachments, you know, globetrotting around the world or whatever they were doing. And, you know, knowing your mom or your dad or your uncle, your cousin in all the ways that they presented in the world is just it's just so special. Um I recall a conversation my daughter was having with my uh father, and my daughter had moved to Hong Kong for a couple of months, and she got sick um almost as suddenly, like as soon as she got there. And my dad was telling her a story of when he got into residence in um India because he was born in Kenya, and the two of them connected over the fact that, like, when you go and you you know live in a different country, all of a sudden you all you want to do is try all the foods, and you just want to get like very adventurous, and you're like, I'm here, and I'm like, you know, I'm like I'm bulletproof. I, you know, nothing's gonna happen to me. Right. Um, and you get that sense of adventure. And I just watched the two of them, an 84-year-old man and a 21-year-old connecting over a shared life experience. Now, of course, I've I've created an environment, not through just root and seed, but in my household to have those conversations. Otherwise, they're just having conversations about the weather or how the blue teams are doing, which they're doing amazing. So we're very happy. Um, but at the same time, it's very much uh very pedestrian, the conversations. It's very like surface. And, you know, now they know each other better, they they have empathy for each other, they understand each other's life, like lived experiences. Otherwise, they're just lumping themselves in generations that where they have no empathy between the two of them. So I just think that's the power of what we're doing at Root and Seed.

Lisa:

Yeah. Digging a little deeper, learning more about the roots, all of those stories that all of us have, but they're all very different, right? Like going to school or not going to school, what it was like to live in the city or the country, what it was like to live in a different country versus yeah, we all have something to learn from each other's experiences, no matter what age. I love that. That's very cool. So tell us more about root and seed. How does it work? What's involved, all of it. Absolutely.

Anika:

Okay, sounds good. So um the experience really starts with conversation cards, like we've been talking about. So um we have uh vetted them with journalists and cognitive linguists, and we have a cultural board across all of the major cultures that are represented in North America. And um, they're simple cards that are under themes like traditions or food or celebrations. And what they do is each of them have a main question that is purposefully very open-ended and broad because it can be interpreted in many ways. To your point about everybody having unique experiences, they may want to take it down one sort of uh way versus another. Each of the QR, each of the um conversation cards have a unique QR code that when you scan it, takes you to a private and secure web application, which is our mobile conversation tool. Now that will take you, once you've logged in with a you know simple authentication, um, that will take you to a main question, and then we have dig deeper questions because oftentimes you'll get the you know, shallow answer or the yes or no, or you know, I'm not really sure. You know, Jen Jen talks about a wonderful example of what she asks her father the question about his childhood. You know, he sort of you know said you know something very um very quick, but then when she asked him the question, which was one of the dig deeper questions, about tell me about your childhood home, all of a sudden it just completely opened up a way for him to express that in fact he didn't actually have his own bedroom. Him and his eight you know siblings were in a room together, and all of a sudden the stories just start flowing. So you never know, you know, what's gonna unlock what. Anyway, and then on the web app, which again is private and secure, you can record audio, you can add up to three images, and you can add text. And we've add some other functionality as well as we move into the home care space and into long-term care, which we could talk about in a moment. Um, but that is at its very simple essence, is what the power of root and seed is. It's those simple conversation cards, which are physical, they allow the elder and frankly any generation to keep on topic. And then the technology, which really empowers the younger generation to be able to record and have complete faith that those stories will be preserved forever. So it's when the two of those elements come together intuitively that the magic happens.

Lisa:

Wow. I love that. And that was one of the key pieces I remember looking at your your cards in the first place and thinking to myself, there's physical cards because I think that was that's so important, right? Like rather than I remember getting like, oh, you can you should create an app for that. And I love that you you have that, you know, the QR code and you can record that way. But I think having the physical cards, it still adds a little bit of um a game and a tactile piece that helps us to, like you said, stay focused and engage with one another, be able to pass the card or read the card or see that you're actually physically in this together, right?

Anika:

You got it. Yeah, game is exactly what we talk about it being because it is playful. Yeah. Um, you know, other companies out there make it feel really um almost like a school project, which there's nothing wrong with these wonderful heritage school projects. I think people should continue to do that. And we do know that we align with the curriculum in grade four, seven, and eleven. So wonderful. And they've used our technology, they used our cards. So we we know that um it works for the schools. But you know, you don't want that to feel like that when you're sitting down with an elder, and frankly, the elder doesn't want to feel it, make it feel like that. And um, by having those two elements, it feels conducive to somebody having um a conversation versus I'm putting the onus on the elder generation to do this or the younger generation to fill in the blanks where maybe they don't have them. And so that game-like nature is incredibly important. Thank you for mentioning that. Um, it's one of our tenants, it's something that we have to continue and want to continue to um make sure we don't lose as we grow.

Lisa:

Yeah, absolutely. I think we can embrace technology, but also keep, you know, the the game piece and the physical aspects that we don't want lost, right? Over time. You got it.

Anika:

You got it.

Lisa:

So tell me more about the how this can benefit and what you're doing now in terms of long-term care or the health care side of things. For sure.

Anika:

So we've been working with a home care company for the past several months to train PSWs and caregivers on how to have these meaningful connections and conversations during their companion care time using the root and seed cards and technology. Um, and we start with training, which is incredibly important because we want to not only allow them to understand how to use our tools and use the cards properly and use the technology, but we want to give people confidence. This is about not, you know, putting more uh more stress on caregivers or making it feel onerous for them as well. That's why I said that we want to make sure that we keep that game-like essence, right? We want to make sure that they feel like they're playing a game too with the elders as well. And so that has been incredibly uh enriching. We did a pilot-like um project with the home care company earlier this year, and now we're launching with them nationally. And I have to say, that's been one of the most satisfying ways to expand the business. Um, you know, I choicefully don't use the word pivot because at the end of the day, we're about capturing family stories, and we probably always will be. Um, it's just a channel, right? So, you know, it's not no surprise to me. Like I said, we were we're in schools that we're in workplaces, but people are still telling families in schools and workplaces using our our tools. And now we've just branched out into the caregiver-client relationship, um, where the relationship can be deepened. There can be empathy between caregiver and between client, that they can understand them more to your point. They can understand them as being people that are beyond their ailments now and beyond their diseases and beyond who they are today and their limitations, and see them as a whole person, as that person who was thriving at one point and still probably thriving, but may have something that they're dealing with that they're you know asking for help with. And so that has been a very, very enriching expansion of root and seed because the channel is just, there's just so much competition in the channel. There is so many people who I still believe are doing the right things. And so what we're doing is we're partnering with those right organizations that have those shared values, that believe in legacy, that believe in intergenerational connection, that believe in the cognitive and physiological benefits of telling your story at that stage in your life, but don't want to do it in that onerous way or don't want to do it in an expensive way. They want to do it in a way that's natural, that is fitting into their companion care already. And so we're actually even moving into keepsake development. So we, as part of the pilot, uh, we had uh we tested out getting 10 stories from an elder, and we produced a physical keepsake for the elder's 80th birthday. And it had some wonderful stories about her upbringing and about how she had love for her children. And um it was given to her sister, which is just like just you know, just there was a copy to give into the client, but also to her sister, and it's just a wonderful way to enrich the experience that is already happening, but enrich the lives of caregivers and a lot enrich the lives of elders.

Lisa:

Wow. I love that so much, and I do hope that everybody jumps on board. That's when I think these conversations need to happen, is way before, you know, getting to the point of say long-term care, retirement, or hospital. You know, I hope that we can we can have conversations and capture what we can and preserve, you know, for legacy purposes. And of course, I see it on the other side where you mentioned earlier about elders getting the benefit from sharing their stories and being heard. But to me, it's also about the mindset shift that happens with healthcare staff, you know, like that that ability to see that person. It's almost like having a different prescription, you know, a new set of glasses where all of a sudden you've you've cleaned your own glasses better where you can see the person because you have way more information and richer information about the person's life. Because otherwise, like we can only do the best we can do with what we know. But the more we know, the better we do, right? So, yes, it's definitely benefiting the people that we're listening to, but it's also making, like you said, we want to we want to help staff members also feel like they went into this work for a reason, right? Like we we go into this work because our heart's there, but there gets to be all these other pieces on the stresses and the the tasks that take over because there's a time commitment that you have to you have to meet. So I love the fact that you're incorporating this and partnering with home care agencies that can that can address this and hopefully capture these stories earlier than later so that they have that for important transitions that may occur later as well. So that's awesome. Yeah, you're totally right.

Anika:

You know, I I'm just thinking about the caregivers that, you know, did the pilot with us and did they just um the things that they to your point got to know about their elders, like all of a sudden now they can plan activities better. Um, yeah, because they know or you know, or um they know that they can um be empowered to uh incorporate this weekly, and it feels like a ritual that you can do, and um, you know, the the stories they get to hear, like some of them said they haven't laughed that hard in like years uh because of the stories they heard. And all of a sudden, you know, the caregivers have um some intentionality and purpose around, again, the companion care of things side of things. Like there is obviously the things you need to do, the cooking and the cleaning and the looking after, you know, the medical side of things, which, you know, not something that we can help with. We know that there's an incredible, you know, infrastructure around to help with that, but we can certainly help with more of the social mental health benefits uh for both the teller and the listener. Um and it's it's an interaction that's already happening that we're embedding ourselves in, um, that we are servicing, that we're we're you know, allowing and hoping, hoping will have that tremendous amount of impact, uh, like you said.

Lisa:

Wow. That's so awesome. Thank you so much for sharing and and sharing your time. I do have one question for you that maybe you've been asked, maybe you haven't. Okay. If you were say to land in the hospital and you've been there a month and you don't have your, you're not able to speak up for yourself. So for whatever reason, um cognitive, physical, emotional reasons that you can't speak up, what would be important for the people around you to know about you? Say you had a healthcare team, what would they need to know if you were to kind of capture this thing that's important? I think that would be that's a loaded question. So there's no right answer or wrong answer.

Anika:

Do you ask all of your guests this?

Lisa:

A few. I haven't asked everyone.

Anika:

I was

Lisa:

giving the pressure's on, Anika.

Anika:

Well, the reason why I ask you that is because we ask, well, we ask everybody a question from our conversation cards usually at the end. So it's usually our a ritual in our podcast. Um what would be important for people to know about me if I couldn't articulate? Um wow, I love this question. Um I think it would be it would be that I am, you know, you and I earlier were talking about serendipity and the universe and all those other forces that that are out there. And, you know, as much as I have a very strong like um attraction to the academic and the research and the factual and you know, what the blood test says and what the this says and what all those other things are, um I've become very spiritual over the last several years. And um, you know, possibly because of my mom passing away, I went down this whole mindset journey. But that has stirred up in me um a spirituality that I think um probably my parents put in me very early on, but I've claimed it for myself now. And it's actually a way that my dad and I connect, which is lovely. Um so I think I would want people to know that surround me with all the sage and the like, you know, all the spiritual stuff. Bring me the the stones and you give me the sense and like give me all those other things. Yes, take care of me medically. And you know, you know, what the what the doctors are saying, do that. Don't don't withhold that, but do all those other things because you know, do it on the right day when the moon is shining and like all the things, like do it. I believe I believe in all that juju. So just load me up, I would say. Um, so I think that that's what be that would be my care notes.

Lisa:

I love it. And you know what? I this is maybe terrible to say, but I don't think we in healthcare do a great job with acknowledging the spiritual side. And it's often, even in assessments, I I hear often, and I can be guilty of it, but I I also feel that way spiritually, so I I can resonate with what you're saying. But it's interesting, it's like, oh, I didn't ask that, or oh, I forgot that part. But it matters, and people might it people may and may not have anything to share about that, but I think it's important that we ask, and knowing that it that's gonna look different for everyone. And spirituality could mean religion, it could mean nature, it could mean like what you're saying, right? Like herbs and spices and moon and like seasons, right? Like yeah, it it involves a whole lot more than I think we think of. Um, so I'm glad you said that. So thank you for sharing that and for putting up with my deep questions. Yes, that was good. It was a good one. I love that one. Well, thank you, Anika, for joining. Is there anything you want to share before we say goodbye? I want to make sure you have the floor to share whatever you want to share.

Anika:

Honestly, Lisa, you are a wonderful, wonderful interviewer. Um, so you make it so, so um inviting to just share uh like just tremendously. So I think um kudos to you for starting this. I think keep going. Um and I would just say, yeah, our our kind of mission is just to continue to impact as many people as possible. And sometimes that's through, you know, using our physical uh, you know, tools or our technology. And sometimes that's just getting inspired by listening to a podcast episode or reading a blog or reading an article. Um, and that's good. That that that still makes us very, very happy. So we want to continue to uh Inspire and uh provide the impact. And then finally the tools to let people know that they have the ability to capture their family story easily, um, compassionately, and have some fun along the way.

Lisa:

Absolutely. Thank you so much. And you also reminded me to mention that Anika has they have Root and Seed has a podcast. So check out their podcast. It's awesome, and they talk about lots of different topics all around the importance of conversation, whether it's in workplace, relationships, family. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you have a few different topics and themes to go on, which is incredible. Um, and definitely check out the recordings, their conversation cards. And yeah, thank you for everything you're doing, Anika. Thank you, Lisa. Thanks for listening today. If you enjoyed this episode, take a minute to look at the show notes for resources and links, and be sure to leave me a rating and review. And also you can follow the show so that you get notified of when the next one comes out. And lastly, if you can think of somebody in your life who you think would enjoy this podcast, I hope you share it with them as well so that they can listen in on the conversations and ponder how to capture their own essence. Take care, and I look forward to the next time.

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