The Reflection Room project started as a calming physical space for people to write stories about their experiences with dying and death based on evidence about best practices to support high-quality spiritual care at the end-of-life. From this first installation, the Reflection Room project has gone through three phases of adaptation and continues to evolve.
Common elements across Reflection Rooms, whether they be set up to include an entire room, hallway, or corner of a room, include a quiet, calming space that invites visitors to read other people’s stories and post their own. The rooms are unstructured and unfacilitated, allowing visitors to engage with the space however they wish.
Over a five-year period from 2016-2020, the Reflection Room project was installed in 62 places across Canada, including in conferences, art galleries, hospices, and hospitals (Phases 1 and 2). Over a thousand stories were shared by individuals during their visits to these various Reflection Rooms. Results from the study from this period showed that storytelling has a healing effect on both storytellers and readers.
The Reflection Room project is currently in Phase 3 of its adaptation and evaluation. In 2020, the SE Research Centre was asked to expand the reach of the Reflection Room to LTC home communities in Ontario to respond to some of the accumulated pandemic-related grief in those communities. With the support of the Saint Elizabeth Foundation, Ontario Health Central, Family Councils Ontario, Ontario Centres for Learning, Research and Innovation in Long-Term Care, and Ontario Association of Residents’ Councils, nearly 50 homes have signed up to host a Reflection Room®. Overwhelmingly positive feedback demonstrates the rooms support communities to work through grief by having a quiet space to rest and reflect, disclose emotions, and feel connected to others through sharing stories. Phase 3 of this project will continue to recruit interested LTC homes across Ontario.
A collection of the stories shared over the course of the project is available to view on the Reflection Room website - https://thereflectionroom.ca