Finding the inner treasure

This post is all about integration. Not so much service integration as personal integration although what affects the individual can affect the service. It comes from myself and Denis meeting for lunch one day in Bradford. Two particular stories were shared in that conversation, one was a very sad tale, the other was a beautiful and inspiring one.

They both point to the need for what Carl Jung called 'individuation'. This is where the innate elements of a person come together and become a working integrated whole. This is the path to psychological wellness and wholeness. Jung saw this as a journey and a deep work. He referred to the 'cure of souls'. Some have suggested that a film like 'Star Wars' is all about individuation. The Jungian analyst Stephen Galipeau wrote a whole book on the subject. Star Wars is all about a young man, Luke Skywalker, who leaves his family as he feels pulled away from the familiar and towards an unknown adventure. This journey becomes a search for the truth - the truth about himself. It is a quest for his true self. He encounters the good and the bad. He has the face the shadow aspects of an Evil Empire and Darth Vader (who turns out to be his own father). In the journey he discovers his own power ('the Force') and has to learn to use it. In this passage Luke finds the truth and becomes who he is. He becomes actualised. This is a journey we all can take. Jung speaks of those who hear the call of the inner person to grow and develop. 'They are called' Jung remarks.

The first story was someone who we know who has taken time off work with stress. He works for a non NHS organisation. Where he works can be very rigid and some people there can struggle with all the rules and control. We wondered how much a culture (that doesn't always support but controls) had been a factor in this good man's struggles. His job is with people and is often a lonely one. We were both struck by the need for structures that nurture and develop us. We see this as the need for wellness practice and wellness structures. We should all have a wellness practice. Something that keeps us connected to our true self and nourishes us with inner food. Along with this, the emergence of workplace structures that nurture wellness and health should be welcomed. We need to move away from 'institutional' templates to templates that think of what help staff to work and be healthy.

The second story was about a good friend of ours who is on the individuation journey. This offers great hope and scope to us. This person is undergoing what we can only transformation. Jung compared the process to alchemy where base metals were transmuted into gold. Our friend is turning the base metals of his life into the gold of a real and free personality. Words like harmonious, peaceful, calm, responsible, free and open come immediately to mind and experience in knowing him.  He has worked on dropping certain things from his life - things which acted as chains. He now projects a wisdom, presence and compassion. This transformation enables him to transform situations and help others on their transformation journey. Jung referred to the undiscovered self. This friend is on the road which will lead to the discovery of the True Beautiful Self we all are and have. To not take this journey can lead in Jung's words to a 'painful fragmentariness' in life.

The good news is that this transformation is both possible and is happening. In the story of Humpty Dumpty he fell from a wall and no one could put the pieces back together again. The great thing is we can. We can re-integrate the pieces and become whole again in a new and brighter way than before. Often we don't know our gifts, power and sheer amazingness. There has to be a process of discovery. This means seeing, owning and manifesting who and what we are. When we do that that's when the magic starts to appear. When we think of great services like the NHS we wonder if this shouldn't play a key role in staff development. Work can often be on a surface level. This is depth work supporting us all find our own inner treasure. The staff and patients of the NHS and other services (in fact every human being) have incredible gifts and energies. The question is how we support each other release them. It is our view that unless we touch the deep we won't receive it.

John Walsh. Support Manager. York Street Health Practice 

Denis Jackson. Mental Health Chaplain. South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust

    

Hearing the homeless - working for best services

We all favour client participation, joint working with key partners, having a strategic vision and making a difference. But how do we do it? How do we make sure one of the key elements is not lost or ignored? Some may say there isn't always an easy answer to this. Some recent work between Healthwatch Leeds and Leeds Community Healthcare / York Street Health Practice offer a good model of how this can happen. In this blog two of the participants describe the work and its lessons.

Healthwatch Leeds is committed to a great vision - 'Healthwatch Leeds gives people a powerful voice on health and social care services in Leeds and beyond. Healthwatch Leeds helps the people of Leeds to get the best out of their local health and social care services, whether it's improving them today or helping to shape them for tomorrow. Healthwatch Leeds is all about local voices being able to influence the delivery and design of local services. Not just people who use them, but anyone who might need to in future'. Healthwatch is the official body that represents patient voice and concerns in the field of health and social care. Its work is vital and everybody in health and social care should actively and positively welcome it. 

Healthwatch Leeds contacted York Street Practice as it needed to produce a report on homeless people and health in Leeds for the Health and Wellbeing Board. The two agencies had already met and were both committed to the provision of the best patient care and experience possible in the city. In the conversation about the report, York Street decided not to host the event for the voice of the homeless to be heard. The reason was we wanted a neutral place where our patients could speak and be as open and honest as possible. We discussed with two key partners in the city - St Anne's Resource Centre and St George's Crypt. They agreed to host the event where Parveen Ayub, Community Project Worker, and volunteers at Healthwatch could meet homeless people and talk to them about health issues and services in Leeds. This work was supported by the agencies involved. It was written into a report that was presented to the Leeds Health and Wellbeing Board. The report looked at difficulties homeless people encounter when accessing health and social care services and the impact it has on their health and well-being. The report supported outcome 5 of the Leeds Joint Health and Well-Being Strategy 2013-15. In this way the voices of those who have few to speak for them was presented to the key strategic health and social care body in Leeds. The homeless were heard! 

To us this linked together many key needs. These include; positive partnerships between health and patient groups, allowing the patient to be heard in neutral but supportive environments that they trust, for patient groups to reach out to where people are, for those without power and a voice to be supported so their voice and needs are heard and for the leading authorities in the city to have this presented to them so they can feature it into their work for the whole city. This circle approach - from patients to strategy - from patient groups to health services - from the creation of positive space where dialogue can occur to changes in the system - all offer great hope and models of how we can work. 

This is how we can make Leeds the best city for health and wellbeing. It's a tremendous thing that we can work to make sure that not only the poorest receive healthcare the fastest but that their voice can be heard quickly through initiatives such as this. This might be the first time in the UK that Healthwatch and a health service have written a joint article celebrating joint great work and offering a key model of how we can work for the vulnerable. If it isn't the first time that's good. If it is, that's something good too. We see what we have tried to describe as best practice for those most in need now and a promise what future work can look like. Hearing the homeless and vulnerable is how we work for best services.

Parveen Ayub -  Healthwatch Leeds

John Walsh - York Street Health Practice

A local partnership with global impact

John Walsh, of York Street Health Practice, discusses his recent trip to Prague as part of a learning programme on street work...
 

In May I joined a group of students and academics from Leeds Metropolitan University (LMU) to travel to Prague to take part in and work to develop a powerful and innovative learning experience. This was the intensive learning programme on street work between four universities, LMU, Barcelona, Amsterdam and Prague, to which the project forms part of a three-year Erasmus-funded Intensive Programme (IP), which initially began in 2013.

 

The Leeds teaching programme, which is led by Darren Hill and Dr Erika Laredo from LMU, creates the space for 40 students from across the four universities to work with academics and practitioners on street work, research, theory and practice. The students come from a range of backgrounds including social work and youth work and had all done preparatory work on issues of homelessness, addiction and social theory. 

This was a great example of how Leeds, in all it's rich complexities of academics, practitioners, students and former service users, could come together to learn and debate options and approaches across countries. Darren Hill, senior lecturer in social work at LMU and co-organiser of the programme, summed up well what this meant: "The students and staff will be studying international street work, visiting homeless projects in Prague, designing research proposals and sharing their skills and experiences. We hope that it will encourage the students to go into masters degree level study and move into street work practice. By drawing together a range of academics and professionals across a variety of disciplines, we aim to address the new knowledge and skills that professionals working within a street context will require over the next decade." More details about this can be found on the LMU website.

My memories of the two weeks are positive and plentiful, with particular things standing out. One was that the Prague conference on the ground was run and overseen by just one person - Barbara Janikova. Barbara is lecturer in the Department of Addictology, First Faculty of Medicine at Charles University in Prague. I was amazed at how one person supported us all and organised the operation on the ground, day after day. She was always there helping students and staff and we were all inspired by her. On the last day at the final meal, we were able to celebrate her and all she had done for us. While it is true that Barbara is an extraordinary person, it showed me again how one person can make a massive difference. It is a lesson I see often in the NHS and elsewhere, that it is really the people that matter. If we get the right people, people of care and vision, all the rest can follow. Without this, I think we run into real problems.

During the two week teaching experience, Jo Smith, my colleague from Leeds Adult Social Care, and I took part in different sessions. Jo is a mental health social worker for the homeless and works in the Mental Health Homeless Team, which is part of Leeds City Council, as well as in the CRI Street Outreach Team. Each day we ran sessions to encourage the students to meet and take part in interactive work; this was to support cross national discourse, discussion and work.

We worked with tutor groups looking at different aspects of teaching and research. My group looked at drug issues and visited an inspirational project, which works with those with drug problems in the city of Prague. It was interesting to hear about their challenges and work and it struck me how in Leeds, we are very fortunate to have built and continue to build strategic alliances for the poor and the vulnerable. These alliances see inclusion as not just including marginalised groups but address how a whole city can and should develop positive health and wellbeing agendas, vision and practice. This allows the generation of work from the bottom up and top down to occur and really start to change things. Two examples of this are the Leeds Health and Wellbeing Board Vision and the innovative work around homeless hospital discharge work (Homeless Accommodation Leeds Pathway (HALP), which Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust and York Street Practice have been key workers in). One person (who has extensive experience in services and service development) and attended the HALP launch in January commented to me recently how, when they attended the launch event, they were impacted by the incredible positive energy in the room and how everything was joined together, from the streets to strategic levels.

We used a variety of forms to teach and share in the two weeks. One interesting format was a staged debate between myself and my friend and colleague, Dr Asun Llene Berne, professor of Theory and History of Education at the University of Barcelona. I was asked to take the proposition that in times of austerity research should not be funded and the funding should go into practice and services. Asun argued that practice without research is lost, hence funding was necessary. The debate took place and we both presented our cases. I was struck by the high level of discussion, reflection and co-learning that the debate and the overall teaching experience created.  I believe with Darren, Erika, Asun, Barbara, Jo and other good colleagues such as Sue Lindsay, we already see international and innovative ways of learning and practice emerging. This offers new possibilities of health and education working in positive partnership to generate quality research, an improved discourse on the needs of our most vulnerable people and the evolution of the most compassionate and effective care possible.

Colleagues at LMU have written an article on York Street Health Practice (click here to read). In it they have a fantastic quote that this a is local partnership with a global impact. I hope we can build this into a living ongoing experience, which can generate a new international dynamic model  of collaborative work, research and practice. I'm proud that Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust are involved in something so potent and promising.

 

John Walsh

York Street Health Practice

Welcome to our blog

Hello and welcome to our blog. Here we will post information regarding the community services we dleiver in Leeds for children and adults.  We work across Leeds in all communities and seek to develop meaningful relationships with our partners in the city and further afield.