Author: Fran Arnold

By Sarah and Natalie, students who were on placement with DWB in Spring 2023

We are two Occupational Therapy students from Sheffield Hallam University currently on placement at Darnall Wellbeing. We planned a new persistent pain support group, starting off by holding an information gathering session to ensure that future group sessions will meet participants’ needs. We were careful not to replicate services that already exist and focused on creating a support group, and not a pain management program as this is already provided by the NHS and is above our current skill set as students.

We were pleased to have a good turnout for the first session. We were joined by people living with persistent pain and healthcare professionals also interested in the group. The session began with some basic information about persistent pain. We defined persistent pain as pain that lasts after normal tissue healing time (usually after 12 weeks) in which other treatments have been unsuccessful.

The high prevalence of persistent pain in the local community was highlighted in order to help reduce the stigma and isolation of living with persistent pain, as participants realised that many people can live well with persistent pain.

We discussed when pain is helpful and unhelpful. The purpose of pain signals are to protect us from damaging our bodies.  However, sometimes when the body has healed, the body systems that lead to the experience of pain stay ‘awake’ and ‘on alert’, tricking the brain into still feeling pain.

Benefits of a persistent pain support group include participants being able to share their experiences of living with persistent pain and supporting each other, whilst increasing their social interaction.

To facilitate social interaction we led an icebreaker activity in which we asked participants to use coloured air-dry clay to create a shape that represents their experience of persistent pain. Some participants took a literal approach by creating a human figure indicating where they feel pain, while others took a more abstract approach.  Participants were invited to share their experiences of persistent pain with the group. It was highlighted that participants felt sharing and listening to others experiences of persistent pain made them feel less stigmatised, less alone, and more positive about their ability to live well with persistent pain.  This activity encouraged frank discussion about issues such as the challenges of expressing concerns to health professionals due to short appointment times, as well as the uncertainty and confusion regarding the benefits and side effects of taking pain medication.

The session finished with a discussion about what participants wanted out of future sessions, ending in the collection of feedback. Suggestions for the content of future sessions were voted upon to ensure a co-productive approach.

For details of Persistent Pain Group sessions, please have a look here.

by Oluchi, one of our Community Champions volunteers

Today’s event went really well, as there were people from different organisations present. It was a welcoming environment, as Mike first had us introduce who we are and where we volunteer, what we have learnt, our skills and qualities of a community champion.

We had in attendance speakers and volunteers from Flower Estate Family Action (FEFA) and Compassionate Sheffield (who spoke on compassion and tips on how to become a compassionate Community Champion). There was also a speaker from Healthwatch Sheffield who educated us on identifying the symptoms of Long Covid, and she also mentioned Healthwatch is working to see that more referrals are made for Black and Asian minority groups. Present also were a group of retired nurses who are for the Black community.

Also, we had a self care session taken by Ruth, a therapist. She emphasised that it’s important that as community champions, we take care of ourselves as much as we care for the communities. She also took us on a memory jar journey, where we wrote out 5 memories we’ve had and then, using salt and coloured chalks, we created different colours in a jar as a representation of our memories. We went home with this jar.

In all, it was a great event.

A blog reporting on our AGM, written by Zoyah Kanwal, one of our Wellbeing Champions.

Each year Darnall Well Being hosts an annual general meeting (AGM) to celebrate the impact that DWB has had on the community. This year’s event was held for the first time at SHU’s Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre on 20th October 2022. From incredible staff case studies to powerful volunteer stories, this AGM in particular highlighted the significant contributions our organisation has made to combat the challenges brought by the pandemic. This event revealed how collectively, as a community, we transformed our difficult and dreary moments into strong and memorable ones.

Unity is not only a fundamental part of strengthening a community but at the very core of DWB’s values and principles. The evening showcased how we converted measurable investments into immeasurable impact, throughout the course of the pandemic we’ve collected stories from over 7,000 contacts and distributed 32,000 Community Connector leaflets, especially targeting digitally excluded areas. We’ve also involved over 273 people with underlying health problems to access existing support across Sheffield such as: diabetes support, Live Lighter, stopping smoking and alcohol reduction – everyone we’ve supported were immensely grateful for DWB facilitating these opportunities getting them closer to their healthier selves.

At the very heart of DWB’s work are the determined and dedicated volunteers. The evening featured speeches from volunteers focusing on why they volunteered and how they benefitted as volunteers. A wide array of responses was shared, demonstrating that ‘you get as much out of it as you give into it’, that ‘it’s lovely to do things which you can’t do otherwise’ knowing you’ve made an impact and that ‘you feel you’re needed’ by your community – a valuable sense of purpose and responsibility, especially when feeling lost in life is highly prevalent in these challenging times. Many volunteers have found that volunteering ‘helped them mentally’ and ‘there wasn’t the help and support to this extent in the past’. 

An important benefit from volunteering is ‘companionship and finding people in situations worse than you’ to help better understand our community’s needs. Others find ‘a sense of peace and calm, taking time to reflect in a non-stressful environment being in the fresh air amongst nature around people in similar situations to you’, you’ll even find that volunteering allows you to ‘come and have a laugh’ with fun being common theme in a variety of activities. Furthermore, encouraging the constant maintaining and improving of mental health, volunteers feel compelled to help ‘de-stigmatise mental health and other things like dementia, because it can happen to anybody’ – no one should feel alone.

Volunteering with DWB, has been a unique and inclusive journey for all volunteers due to the vast diversity of ‘different ethnicities, different age groups and walks of life, different work experiences and different skillsets’ illustrating that ‘everyone has an opportunity to get involved’.  DWB has ensured their impact is further expanded by broadening horizons for its volunteers. Volunteers utilised opportunities to upgrade their skillsets through training courses in areas like sports leadership, dementia, digital skills, mindfulness, first aid and nutrition. As a result, the constant focus of improving our work and volunteers led to opening new activity areas like sports and mindfulness to explore, increasing community engagement.

A closing speech given by Professor Robert Copeland from SHU’s Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre explained the 3Ps concept (‘People, Place and Purpose’) and emphasised its significance for supporting our community. It’s the lives of the people in Darnall who we’ve transformed and supported that keeps our organisation standing. Darnall is a place that matters to us, ‘we want to create a safer Darnall, where people are hopeful and feel belonged – the power to bring stability in uncertainty’. DWB is a purpose-driven organisation, committed to empower others to rise and flourish, instilling purpose to those we serve giving them value and meaning to benefit from – ‘truly the most powerful gift to a society’. The driving force behind each and every part of our service is the compassion from all our staff, trustees, volunteers and most importantly our community. As Coretta Scott King once said, ‘the greatness of a community is measured by the compassionate action of its members’.

A blog post by Amran Jimale, a third year medical student at the University of Sheffield.

Amran, who did her social accountability placement with us in December 2022, was really interested in the different ways that we reach the community, and she wanted to share her experience with our Green Social Prescribing craft activity.

Crafting has been shown to have numerous benefits for health, including reducing anxiety and depression, and improving self-esteem and cognitive function. It can also provide a sense of accomplishment and purpose, as well as a creative outlet for self-expression.

I really enjoyed myself and it was a great opportunity for members of the community to come together, socialise, and make something beautiful. I hope to attend more events like this at Darnall Well Being.