Pirate play day at the Leeds Family Intervention Service

Amal Sirrieh from the East Leeds Family Intervention service tells us about the recent pirate fun day hosted by the service.

The offers support to families and communities who may be in need of help in a range of areas. The service works predominately with families and children aged between 0-10 years old.

The service has recently organised an event aimed at bringing families involved in the service together to gain feedback about the support they have been receiving. As the core work completed within the team is focused around improving the home situation for children, it was very important to ensure the voice of the child was captured within the event. To ensure this took place, members of the team put their creative minds together to think about how to best achieve this. The outcome was well received by all – pirate theme.

Children were invited to make and decorate their own pirate hat, to create wall mounted collages to take home, visit the balloon station where hats, animals, swords and fishing rods were in high demand. Last but not least was the face painting area where children went to transform themselves into an animal of choice. It was great to see everyone enjoying themselves and meeting new people.

Mixed in among all of the fun and activities, were the feedback tables. To ensure anonymity within responses, colour coded stickers were provided that were linked with certain questions. The aims and objectives were to try and grasp the children’s perspectives of changes that have come about since working with the service and how they have affected them. A number of islands were created to represent positive and negative feedback these were called stormy, cloudy and sunny island. Adults were also invited to share their thoughts of the service.

The event was very successful in that lots of feedback was received. The children really enjoyed this aspect of the event and were transported to a land of sand, sea and pirates.

My work experience with Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust - by Harrison Dickens

Our guest blogger Harrison tells us about his experiences working for LCH...

Hello, my name is Harrison Dickens. I came to LCH for my work experience, and I spent most of the week working with Ian and his team at the IT helpdesk, and it was very interesting. On Thursday, I came down to the Comms team and learned about community talk and the intranet Elsie. Both the IT team and the Comms team made me feel very welcome, and I have enjoyed being a part of the teams.

On my first day, I was introduced to the IT team by Ian, and they all made me feel very welcome. I had a document of tasks that I needed to complete throughout the week, and most have been enjoyable. But even though there was on gruelling task, it still made me think that a job in IT is what I’d like to achieve. The atmosphere in the room was relaxed, and everyone was very friendly. I spent Tuesday working with Paul, and seeing what an IT helpdesk employee does. I loved it, as he allowed me to help him fix problems with laptops and log a call for an engineer to come and fix! I reset someone’s password for them, and used phonetic alphabet to reset someone’s Toughbook. I watched (and took part in) the Toughbook training, and it was interesting to see how the NHS Toughbook project comes to use.

Thursday was fun, as I met the Comms team and saw Emma and met Chloe. It was interesting to watch the Elsie training, as it is what the LCH use so I got a better understanding of what they use on Elsie. After that, I helped Sarah do the community talk. She showed me how she makes the community talk, and I was tasked with making it. Once I had done that, I went to a membership event with Emma and Chloe. It was interesting to see what the members enjoyed about the event, and to see the questions they had for the event.

Overall, I really enjoyed my time working here, if only for a week. Thank you everyone, for being so welcoming :D

Membership...focus on men's health

Stephen's Story
Read Stephen's story on why he became a members and some of the issues that affect men's healh today...

"I joined Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust after I saw an advertisement on a Leeds bus telling me that I could participate in, and help to shape, our NHS. This was appealing as I had spent the majority of my working life in or connected with the NHS and although it remains dear to my heart, sometimes it fails to reach the standards required. I believed that in the right environment I could contribute by using the experience I had gained from being both an employee and a patient to help overcome the challenges that the NHS faces now and in the future.

Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust has provided me with the forum that I sought offering me a platform as well as practical involvement so that I have played a part in shaping what is to come. It also helps me to keep up to date with how the NHS is changing.

Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust has also provided a pathway for wider involvement, working with the NHS Leadership Academy, Clinical Commissioning Groups, the CQC Action Team, the Open University pre-registration Nursing Programme and the opportunity to become an ‘Expert by Experience’ (a member of the CQC inspectorate).

Here are fourteen of the major issues (in no particular order} that I believe inform men’s approach to physical and emotional health:

• With the increase in female doctors, some men are too shy to discuss or be examined for ‘personal’ ailments
• Being ill does not correlate with male icons such as sports film and rock stars
• Some men feel that they are expected to be strong (illness being regarded as a weakness)
• Most health campaigns are targeted at women
• Poor previous experience of healthcare may be influential to some
• Most nurses are women
• Continuous contact between men and their GPs is easily broken after childhood (even children are most often taken to doctor’s by mother)
• Statutory Sick Pay is too low
• Women are entitled to more free prescriptions
• The media constantly publicise that the NHS is under strain
• Fear of discrimination at work
• Closing local services
• Difficulty in making a GP appointment
• Some men like to feel that they are in control of their lives, sometimes the NHS usurps this."

Find out more about being a member and our 'What's Up Man' campaign focusing on men's health here.

Work Experience with LCH NHS Trust

My name is Caleb Dodd and I go to Carr Manor Community School. From the 27th to the 31st of January I was extremely lucky to be given the opportunity to undergo work experience with the Communications department at Stockdale House.

During Rob’s Blog on Monday morning I was given a special mention from Rob Webster, the Chief Executive, this was followed by a warm welcoming from the whole Stockdale House team. Immediately I felt comfortable in the working environment here.

I completed lots of tasks over the week. Some were interesting and enjoyable, some were arduous and repetitive. That was one of the things I picked up in my time here; some things however boring have to be done. Another thing I was shocked about upon arrival was the amount of work that is done around here. On Monday morning I was reassured by Gillian Neild, Communications, PR and Marketing Manager, that it would be impossible to finish all the jobs on my schedule. My daunting schedule would seem straightforward to some of the people here as they do twice the amount!

Although the working atmosphere was relaxed, there were times where I’d look up from my desk and see a room full of people relentlessly typing away, working. The professional environment suited me. I enjoyed the feeling of being a part of a team operation on a massive scale.

I did things like writing press releases, writing for Community Talk (the weekly staff e-bulletin), social media research, updating the calendar, packing boxes of NHS branded gifts, graphic design work, writing this blog post and attending a aunch event. A fantastic variation in challenges.

The H.A.L.P. (Homeless Accommodation Leeds Pathway) event was very interesting. I learnt so much about this new program. It was a pleasure to be in the presence of people who are making such an impact on homelessness.

The week was a massive learning curve for me. I was given an insight into communications that I hadn’t had before. I got to be a part of a huge organisation even if only briefly. I thoroughly enjoyed my time here.