Flu kills over 11,000 people every year, on average.
Some years it’s much more and it hospitalises many more each year.
This is anything but an average year.
As Covid-19 is likely to be circulating with flu, protecting those at high risk of flu, who are also those most vulnerable to hospitalisation as a result of Covid-19, is vitally important.
We think of it as ‘just the flu’. But it’s a virus. It can cause severe complications, particularly amongst those at high risk. So when it comes to flu, there’s no ‘just’ about it.
The flu virus spreads from person to person, even amongst those not showing any symptoms.
It can cause severe complications, particularly for high risk groups. Don’t put off getting the flu vaccination. If you’re eligible get it now. It’s free because you need it. Contact your GP or pharmacist to book an appointment.
Image by ErikaWittlieb from Pixabay
Worried or Unsure About Getting a Flu Jab?
There’s lots more information and questions answered about the flu jab on the NHS Sheffield CCG website here.
Greg Fell, Sheffield’s Director of Public Health, has also made a video busting some common myths about the flu jab. You can watch it here:
We know there can be false stories shared online about vaccinations and that these can be worrying. You can always check the truth about online stories about vaccines via the independing fact checking website Full Fact.
The leaflets below are produced by the NHS and give information about the flu vaccine in different languages. Other translations are available on the Public Health England website.
Update on Darnall Well Being Services – October 2020
South Yorkshire is moving to a Tier 3 “Very High” Covid restrictions area on Saturday 24th October.
We would like to reassure the community and partners that we will continue to deliver support during this time, in line with our workplace Covid risk assessments.
Support available from Darnall Well Being includes our:
Covid Community Hub – offering telephone advice and information
Regular wellbeing phone calls and doorstep visits where possible, for those that need it the most
Regular activity packs through the post
Regular (Zoom) conference calls for our volunteers – with the prospect of more opportunities to connect online for our group members before long.
Link Workers can still offer one to one support for people with long-term conditions like diabetes and chronic pain management, help with improving physical and mental wellbeing, as well as signposting to other services where needed.
To limit the spread of Covid-19, our indoor groups will remain suspended for now, but the team are working hard and talking with local people and partners, to plan what we can do safely outdoors and online to bring people together and stay well. Some activity has already started including Ladies Cycling and volunteering sessions at two brilliant Allotment plots in the area.
We continue to monitor official announcements and guidance, making changes to our plans if needed.
Remember – the basics matter. We all have a role to play to help our community stay safe: keep your distance, wash hands regularly, good ventilation, wear a face covering where needed, unless exempt.
The UK Government has decided that Sheffield is at the Tier 2 (High) COVID local alert level This means that additional restrictions are in place from 14th October 2020. The posters below give some general information anout the impacts on our day to day life. For more detailed information, please visit the UK Government website here:
October 3rd and 4th is Fun Palaces 2020 Weekend. Fun Palaces is all about FUN and sharing what we do with our local community. Along with our partners at Sheffield Olympic Legacy Park and the Canal & River Trust, we’ve put together a number of mini Fun Palaces that are within Covid restrictions, but still enable the community to have fun!
Display your pictures in your front window to share with your friends and neighbours.
If you can, please take a photo of your pictures and email them to us at dwb.enquiries@darnallwellbeing.org.uk or post them on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram and tag us @darnallWB
Located at Infield Lane, S9 4PE, behind High Hazels Park, Darnall Allotment Project invites you to explore the site and discover the fun you can have growing and eating your own fruit and vegetables https://www.facebook.com/darnallallotmentproject
FREE seeds to plant and grow at home.
To book a slot on Sunday 4th October please ring 07495 548 929.
Follow one or both routes, and send us your photos and drawings of things you see on the way. Email dwb.enquiries@darnallwellbeing.org.uk or post them on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram and tag us @darnallWB
Have you ever fancied trying canoeing? The Canal & River Trust are hosting FREE 1 hour sessions on Saturday the 3rd October on the canal near the Olympic Legacy Park.
To book your place and for more details please email jade.wilkes@canalrivertrust.org.uk. Places are limited and on a first come first serve basis. No experience necessary. This activity is suitable for children aged 8+ and adults of all ages. Children under 16 MUST be accompanied by an adult. This event is for pre-booked tickets only.
For more information about Fun Palaces in general and to search for other Fun Palaces, please visit their website.
The project operated from 4th – 25th August with 2 distribution centres – Church of Christ, Darnall and Tinsley Forum, Tinsley.
Staff and volunteers dedicated their time to supporting families by distributing food hampers and activity resources. All families received a cricket set, hula hoop or skipping rope alongside their hampers.
A total of 733 food hampers were distributed in Darnall and Tinsley. Families received fresh ingredients and 2 recipes each week for a different food theme – Mexican, Italian, Curry and English Omelette.
Families also attended sports activities which were delivered by Sheffield City Trust staff. SCT facilitated 2 hour sessions in Darnall and Tinsley on Wednesday and Thursday, providing the opportunity for families to enjoy playing football, cricket, athletics and basketball.
In Tinsley, other activities included free 1 hour cycling sessions for group of 5 children. Steam Works staff facilitated family workshops with parents and children, featuring different topics each week, such as programming with OZOBOTS (mini robots), slime making and bath bombs.
We were so happy to see the expressions on parents’ faces as they collected their hampers, with produce ready to prepare meals for their families. Watch our video to see more of what we got up to!
This has been (and remains) an intense time for us.
We did not shut our doors during lockdown – in fact, though our usual face to face activity paused, the team have continued to work hard to maintain contact and provide alternative ways to support people to stay well, maintaining regular contact with our 1to1 clients and group beneficiaries where possible.
If you feel you or someone you know would benefit from this support, please let us know
Please know that we are still here, doing our best to support the community remotely and maintain our Covid Community Hub phone line 07946 320 808 for those in need of a helping hand.
The pandemic is in a new phase but it is still with us, affecting our day to day lives, the impact we all feel in many different ways.
DWB are navigating the next few months with the knowledge that we, our partners and beneficiaries will be at different stages of how they feel about what is happening and the need to move forward collectively is really important and to do this at the pace that feels right for us, to protect ourselves and community. This pace may not always match people’s expectations.
We need to build time to reflect, for respite, to re-connect and to recognise what we are achieving.
The Summer has been exceptionally busy owing to the delivery and operational demands of the Healthy Holidays Project (part of a wider citywide delivery) and from the demands of engaging in the city’s Covid response.
Whilst we continue to suspend face to face delivery for now, we are planning and taking steps to build an activity offer that is manageable, safe and a positive experience to support people to stay well whilst we our community still grapples with a pandemic.
It is likely, however, that we will continue some new ways of working for the foreseeable future and are not able to restart everything the way it was before Covid 19 began.
We realise you may feel disappointed but we hope you understand we are acting in the best interests of our community. We will make every effort to keep you informed.
A few highlights from over the past few months;
We have stayed in touch with 262 activity participants & 32 volunteers
Our Link workers have received 58 referrals from 5 GP surgeries
We’ve made 160 Food bank referrals
And in addition to the above, we’ve made regular contact from our EU Settled Status Project client list of 1,000 contacts
To the end of July 2020 we have taken 101 phone calls/emails through the community hub phone line.
Ways to stay informed:
You or a family member or friend could follow us on Social Media for regular updates. Please search for @DarnallWB on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Check www.nhs.uk website regularly for the latest guidance
Sheffield’s voluntary sector has useful updates here:
10th to 16th August 2020 marks National Allotment Week, which is a great opportunity for us to share some of the brilliant things that On The Plot participants have been growing!
We sent out “Let’s Get Growing!” packs to everyone who would normally come along to our Dementia-friendly sessions at Darnall Allotment Project, and it has been fantastic to see the results from our green-fingered friends. Thanks to Johnny, Cookie, Pat, Nikki, Verena and Bill for letting us share photos of what they have grown. We’d love to see more, if you have shots you’d like to send us!
Bill and Verena’s beets and lettuceCookie’s courgettesPat’s runner beansTomatoes growing in potsNikki’s begonias in bloom
As well as the vegetables and seeds we sent out in July, we also sent out sunflower seeds and instructions for growing them a couple of months ago, to enable people to join our sunflower growing competition. We’ve been getting some positive reports of plants growing well – as well as news that some, unfortunately, haven’t worked out. We’re looking forward to seeing all of the outcomes later on in the season – when Jo will be judging the tallest one!
We held a special Zoom call for staff, Board members, volunteers and group participants on Monday 3rd August – our Virtual Cuppa.
DWB’s Virtual Cuppa Zoom call for Yorkshire Day
The call was a belated celebration of Yorkshire Day – so we sent out tea bags and biscuits with our latest activity packs, so that everyone could join us. We’re very grateful to Yorkshire Tea for donating a huge number of tea bags to help us with this, and ensuring we were able to drink proper Yorkshire tea on this momentous day!
On the call, we enjoyed a chat over our cuppas, and then everyone joined in a little Yorkshire-themed quiz put together by Fran, our Communications & Engagement worker, to explore what we knew about Yorkshire – and learn a couple of fun facts about the region along the way!
We asked people who weren’t able to join us on the Zoom call to share any photos of themselves enjoying their cuppas at home or with friends, and we’re really happy to see these photos.
Sayrish volunteers with DWB as a Digital Wellbeing Champion, and wrote a blog piece for us about her experience of life during lockdown.
Sayrish, a DWB Digital Wellbeing Champion
Despite disruptions to our daily routine, quarantine has had a positive impact, as I’ve been able to discover new activities, such as daily workouts and online livestream fitness classes, including Joe Wicks’ exercise routine. Physical activity can help de-stress and uplift your mood whilst spending a long time indoors, and can enable you to sleep better. Although I enjoy comfort eating, I’ve discovered new cultural recipes to stay healthy, as well as online courses such as nutrition in understanding how food affects your body, mind and health, alongside other interesting topics via Future Learn. Some days I enjoy watching my favourite TV shows, virtual meetings with friends on Zoom, decluttering my room by removing unnecessary items and dedicating my time to learning new languages such as Arabic. To avoid too much screen time, I recommend reading books and going for long walks in the park to enjoy the lovely scenery.
Fran Arnold, DWB Communications and Engagement Worker
Fran has worked for Darnall Well Being since September 2019, as Communications and Engagement Worker. Like everyone else, Fran’s days have been very different since March this year! She now works from home, part-time, whilst also home schooling her 2 sons, aged 10 and 7. On a typical work day now, Fran gets up early and works at the kitchen table until breakfast time for her sons. She then fits in Zoom meetings and social media posting in between making sure that her sons are managing with the school work they receive from their primary school. By lunchtime, the boys have generally finished their school work, so afternoons are spent with them, getting as much fresh air as possible – on the trampoline, playing football in the garden, riding bikes, and looking after the vegetables and other plants that they are trying to grow. Later, the boys have Minecraft time, so Fran gets more work done – and then it’s time for her to join the boys on the daily session of PE With Joe Wicks on YouTube. And finally, they make it to teatime!
Fran says, “As well as making sure I come up with plenty of content to share from DWB on our social media accounts, I also focus on finding and sharing useful information from other organisations on social media. I’ve done a lot of work on getting the DWB website up and running during lockdown, and now I continue to add content regularly to it. I’m also writing guides for other members of the team, so that they know how to contribute to the website, too. I’ve helped the team with getting set up to work from home and join Zoom calls, etc as this was all new to a number of the team. And I try to keep in touch with our digital Wellbeing Champions via our WhatsApp group, to share useful information about Covid-19 and the community response, so that they can help to share that information to the wider community.”
Some of the craft packs created and delivered by DWB in July 2020
In July, we decided to send out Craft Packs to our Craft Group participants, as well as to half a dozen of our clients and volunteers, who we felt would most benefit from a craft boost. Each pack was put together specific to the recipient – just one of the advantages of us knowing our community well. As you can see, the packs were happily received, and we look forward to seeing some of the beautiful creations that are made from them!
We were fortunate enough to be nominated for a donation by Sheffield-based charity 500Together at the end of April 2020, and wanted to put it to good use helping local people who we knew were struggling during Covid-19. We decided to match fund the donation, so that we had £500 in total to share with the community. So we asked our staff, who are in regular contact with members of the community, to nominate families and individuals who they felt could really benefit from a Tesco gift card during this difficult time.
Giftcards bought with the 500Together donation
We sent out gift cards to 8 families and 4 individuals, and have had some heartwarming feedback and thanks from the recipients:
I thank the donors and all staff who helped the voucher to be dispatched. We are grateful we feel that are not left behind.
Individual on low income
, the £50 Voucher its make a difference financially , we bought things which we wish to get it before , Thanks a lot for the donor .
Family recently arrived in UK, with a baby due
The voucher was very helpful as my benefits were stopped 6 weeks ago, so I appreciate it. Helpful to me and my 5 children as a single parent. I have been finding it hard to prepare food and going out to buy stuff so I really appreciate the token and thank you and Darnall Well Being for support.
Single parent with 5 children
Don’t know what I would have done otherwise. A big thank you DWB for the lovely gift – words cannot express my feelings.
Single parent who has had a number of illnesses
It made difference in our life so that we could buy more food. For the children, while they are at home eating more food all the time, it gives them a little extra treat.
The Chief Executive of Darnall Well Being has been appointed to the Board of Directors at Sheffield Olympic Legacy Park.
Lucy Melleney will act as a conduit and help capture a local community perspective, working with the Board to deliver one of its key Olympic legacy objectives – to provide local people with significant improvements in health, wellbeing, education, skills, training, and job opportunities and to contribute to the economic regeneration of the local area.
Lucy Melleney, CEO of DWB
Darnall Well Being is a local, not-for-profit, community anchor organisation working to help the people of Darnall, Tinsley and neighbouring areas stay healthy.
Through an integrated programme of activities and services, it aims to reduce health inequalities by working with local people, to help build knowledge, connections, cohesion and resilience.
Lucy Melleney said: “Darnall Well Being has 20 years’ experience of engagement with the community in Darnall, Tinsley, and Acres Hill, building trust and working in partnership to help people in ways that work best for them. We offer one to one and group support, workshops and training, as well as signposting information about local and national support to help improve health and wellbeing.
“We are well placed to collaborate with Sheffield Olympic Legacy Park and partners to further develop this work and achieve greater outcomes.”
Lucy added: “Enabling people to focus on what matters to them and encouraging opportunities in education and specialised training, will assist the economic improvements that are much needed, and which can in turn impact positively on the health and wellbeing of the local community.”
Sheffield Olympic Legacy Park brings together a unique partnership of organisations with a vested interest in improving physical activity and wellbeing and a commitment to harnessing the power of education, research and innovation to deliver transformational change.
The 80-acre site is attracting substantial investment in one of the most diverse areas of the city, which is acting as a catalyst for regeneration and growth. It is expected to create 3,500 high value jobs and generate £1.38bn in benefits.
The Park is home to an Oasis Academy and a University Technology College, which has an employer-led curriculum supported by Sheffield’s two universities and over 70 employer partners – equipping the workforce of the future with skills inHealth Sciences, Sport Science, and Computing.
Lucy added: “Darnall and Tinsley have above average rates of unemployment and insecure employment, and encouraging people to take up opportunities in education and specialised training will assist the economic improvements that are much needed.”
Sheffield Olympic Legacy Park is also home to Sheffield Hallam University’s Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre (AWRC), a global centre for research and innovation in physical activity, dedicated to improving the health and wellbeing of whole populations. The partnership with Sheffield Olympic Legacy Park will build on the collaborative work Darnall Well Being is already carrying out with the AWRC.
Darnall Well Being is also a recognised Community Hub organisation, providing an essential role during the current Covid-19 crisis, working closely with a range of services in the local area and acting as a conduit between the City Council and local community.
Sandi Carman, Assistant Chief Executive of Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said: “As a founding Member of Sheffield Olympic Legacy Park, Sheffield Teaching Hospitals is delighted to welcome Lucy to the Board as a Community Director which will help us deliver improvements in the health and wellbeing of the local community through collaboration, education, awareness, activities and events.
“We already work closely with communities in the surrounding area through our Park partners but by having Lucy on the Board we hope to engage even more to help with the delivery of the London 2012 Olympic legacy through the themes of sport, community, environment and economic regeneration.”
Darnall Well Being – Our Stance on Tackling Racism and Inequalities
June 2020
By working with you – the community we serve, our staff, volunteers, trustees and partners locally and across the city, we want to take action against racism and inequalities and become a more equal community.
As an organisation, we know we must do more to address this, and we must do it better.
We are committed to:
Explicitly state our commitment to challenge racism in our society
Make a sustained effort to ensure this is entwined and in the ongoing fabric of the culture and values of Darnall Well Being, now and in the future
Look at how we are able to broaden our reach and diversify who attends our activities and services
Discuss at a senior level how we achieve more diverse representation on our Board of trustees, to match the diversity of our team and area
Maintain and grow a mix of representative voices
Continue to tackle the ongoing inequalities that lies within our communities
Listen to the voices of local people in order to learn and connect with their context and experiences. In turn, this will inform and shape our approach and services
Acknowledge and respect our differences, whilst embracing unity
Did you know that June is Move More Month in Sheffield? Move More Sheffield have created a calendar with suggestions to get more active every day in June. Here at Darnall Well Being we know what an important role physical activity plays in making our physical and mental health better, so our team have been doing as much as we can to get involved. As well as sharing what we’ve been up to on our social media channels, we have also delivered the Move More calendar to all of our service users, to encourage others to join in, too!
From yoga to running, cycling to boxing, garden workouts to chairobics, and plenty more besides – here’s some of what DWB staff have been up to so far in June. We hope it inspires you to move more, too!
Darnall Well Being featured in Now Then Magazine on 9th June, in an article about the activity packs that we have been delivering around the local area to people we normally get to see in person. Have a read here, if you’d like to know more!
We’ve also been putting together a number of new activity packs, starting with one for a number of our regular contacts, on the theme of Move More Month, which is taking place in Sheffield throughout June 2020. As well as the Move More calendar, to give ideas of activities to get people moving, we also sent sporty wordsearches, advice about regular walking, and other information about Covid 19, too.
June’s Move More Month Activity Pack
Our Dementia Activity Packs have been popular, so another set have gone out this month, with quizzes and colouring sheets, as well as the Move More contents.
Dementia Activity Pack 5
We would normally be starting our On The Plot group at Darnall Allotment in June, but because of Covid 19 restrictions, that sadly isn’t possible this year. So we have sent out some gardening themed activity packs, specifically for people who would usually come along to help on the allotment.
On The Plot Activity Pack 1
Don’t forget that some of the contents from all these packs are available to download here!
Waqas, one of our Senior Health Workers, talking with a client
Waqas has worked for Darnall Well Being for 10 years as a Senior Health & Wellbeing worker. Recently, he has also taken on the new role of Link Worker. On a typical Link Working day, he comes into the office at 9am, and checks his DWB and NHS emails. He then goes to clinic, in one of the local GP surgeries, and is there until 14.00. At clinic, people are booked in with him for appointments by GPs, Occupational Therapists and District Nurses. A first appointment lasts 45 minutes, with subsequent appointments being 30 minutes. Waqas says “The length of time makes a big difference in helping learn about someone – I have the time to take a holistic approach to helping, and I’m able to take the load of non-medical work away from GPs, by supporting people and connecting them with the right services.”
Waqas deals with all kinds of referrals – he talks here about a typical case where a family contacted the GP because they wanted their parent to go into a care home, but they didn’t know where to start. As a non-medical matter, the GP referred the family to Waqas. He met with the family to get the background to their situation, understand what support they had already, and what issues they were facing. Then he liaised with social services and continued to act the contact for both parties, and the GP, to come back to for more information if needed. He was also able to provide details about groups and support available for the family in the local area.
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