HEALTHY LIVING NETWORK
It has been recognised that a key element of the Healthy Living Initiative is to provide the umbrella support structure of the Healthy Living Network. The role of the Network is to provide a platform for community groups wishing to take forward and be involved in healthy living initiatives. The network provides an opportunity for groups to learn from each other, gain support, spread information, and work together in partnership. As part of the Network, a newsletter is distributed to disseminate information and good practice. Training seminars have also provided including:
The Healthy Living Network was set up in 1999 with the aim of working in partnership with other people and agencies. The Healthy Living Initiative is looking to support the community and voluntary sectors in taking a meaningful role within the planning and delivery of health services. The Healthy Living Network with 430 members provides an opportunity for people to keep in touch with what is going on within the county with respect to Healthy Living projects and initiatives.
The Network has distributed 10 newsletters including information on funding initiatives, other local projects, and examples of good practice. Information is provided to community groups on the web sites available through the Health Promotion Service at www.healthpromcornwall.org and the Health Action Zone at www.cornwallhealth.org.uk/haz/index.htm. This includes Network Newsletters, programme progress reports and other useful information (i.e. NOF update), plus a networking forum on-line.
For more information contact: Nigel Ellis on 01209 216967
March 2002 Newsletter
Workshops prove a huge success
The recent workshops on ‘Best ways to write an application for funding’, which were held in Ludgvan in February and Bodmin in March, proved to be extremely useful to over 100 Healthy Living Initiative members who attended. The comments on the evaluation forms showed just how relevant it was with comments such as ‘My job involves filling in funding applications and I will use my experience from today to make sure that future applications are filled in with more knowledge that I have gained from this workshop’. With a number of members unable to attend because of numbers it is hoped to run the workshop again.
So that we can meet the needs of Healthy Living Network members please let us know what further information/training/support would be useful to you as a member. Please contact us on 01209 216967.
Something for nothing!
Would you or any of the people in your community like to work in health or social care?
Would you like to improve your English?
Do you want to learn more about computers or improve your writing skills?
Do you want to learn when and where it suits you rather than going to a class at the same time every week?
If you have answered "Yes" to any of these questions then Learn Direct could help you! Learn Direct is an organisation which was set up by the Government and offers high quality learning at a time, place and pace that suits you. You could learn as quickly or as slowly as you like.
Care Connect learning is part of Learn Direct and was set up by the public sector trade union, Unison, to help people who would like a career in health and social care. Through links that The Scarman Trust has made with Unison and the Workers Education Association, community champions can now access these free Care Connect courses for their project.
This means that if people in your community wish to improve their English, maths, communication or IT skills they can access free Learn Direct courses. A tutor can even come direct to you. Maybe to your local community centre. And the best thing is it won’t cost you a penny—no course fee, training materials or venue costs.
Contact Kay Heyes, Workers Education Association
Tel: 020 7613 7577 or 07763 074171
E-mail [email protected]
St Dennis Band, St Austell
Grant of �1,000 to purchase three brass instruments.
Music and Health
The initial reason for teaching children to play musical instruments is not one of health but rather to introduce them to the world of music. Health aspects are a by-product which can affect all who undertake this pastime, especially wind instruments, with learning to use the lungs correctly.
May I use as examples of health benefits the four cases I reported on at the recent conference in Newquay.
An elderly retired gentleman decided, because he had so much spare time, to take up piano. He suffered from arthritis in his fingers, but found that after a while, due to the finger exercises he had to carry out, the pain was eased and the fingers certainly became more supple.
A young girl’s mother had been given thalidomide during her pregnancy, resulting in the child having a right leg that finished at the knee, and a left arm only about two thirds its natural length, with that hand being virtually useless. By the time she was eight years old, because of peer pressure, her self esteem was shot to pieces. Music was tried and the only instrument she could handle was an upright brass baritone. She found herself in an environment that was only concerned with musical ability. Her self confidence improved to such an extent that she became, in her teens, the Champion Youth Euphonium player of all Southern England.
One of my pupils, when I first met her, was on the verge of being excluded from her Primary school. She was a menace—she must have her own way and would fight anyone who crossed her. She became enthusiastic for playing her cornet and began to put in a lot of home practice. Her standard of playing improved no end so that she found herself being promoted within her band. Without realising it, she had had to impose self discipline upon herself. Also without realising it, this self discipline began to affect all other aspects of her life, especially academic studies and behaviour. A high spirited girl, she can still blow up at home, but has in fact become a much more responsible person.
Another youngster has suffered from asthma, fortunately not severe but certainly experiencing some distressing times. On her last biannual check up it was decided that the improvement was so great that she can be weaned off all medication. Subsequent questioning revealed that she had been learning a brass instrument. The constant need for breath control was the reason for her good news.
Of course music programmes are not a universal panacea for all ills. Nor is it a certain cure for some but in so many cases either physical or mental health can be improved and that has to be a good thing.
John Brush (Vice President)
St Dennis Band
Ten top tips for successful fundraising applications
Last year applicants to the Community Fund
(formerly the National Lottery) had a one in three chance of success. That is likely to
decrease this year, as Community Fund has less money to give away. They will have to make
some tough choices so community groups will want to think carefully about the quality and
appropriateness of the applications. The fund’s regional development officers have
ten top tips to improve your chances of success…
- Read the help notes. No REALLY read them.
- Fill in ALL the boxes. If a box is not applicable, say so.
- Check that you are sending all the relevant pieces of information, including bank statements. See the checklist at the back of the form.
- Be concise and to the point. Avoid jargon.
- Have your constitution checked by a CVS (community voluntary service) or other helper agency.
- Are you planning a change in legal status? Apply afterwards.
- Check to see if you are eligible for funding from Government initiatives. Check that the services you intend to provide are not covered by statutory provision.
- If you’re applying for grants of up to �60,000 ensure TOTAL project costs don’t exceed �60,000.
- Ring the Community Fund’s enquiries line for a brief chat about whether your project would be suitable (tel: 020 7587 6609).
- Get someone who knows nothing about your project to read your draft application before submitting the final one.
Produced by the Community Fund
Lottery funds available
Awards for All is a small grants scheme (�500 to �5000) available to statutory health bodies as well as local community groups. Applicants get a decision within 3 months. We are keen to encourage health-related projects, as the application rate is currently low.
The projects for which organisations request funding must be clearly additional to existing statutory provision and should promote or improve health or provide support to those people living with ill health or disability and their carers.
We cannot fund a group to sustain its current activity so we would expect the project for which funding is sought to be new or developmental activity. Some examples of the sort of projects we can fund are:-
For application forms please ring 0845 600 2040.
Healthy Living Small Grants
St Keverne CP School
Grant of �200 to purchase fruit
The grant was used to purchase fruit for the children, each child was given a free selection of cut up fruit every day for four weeks during last October/November. The fruit was varied including exotic and dried fruit. The tuck shop was closed at the start of the four weeks and has remained closed ever since. Children now bring in 50p a week and the fruit is purchased through a wholesaler who delivers direct to the school. Over 80 per cent of the children and 100 per cent of staff have signed up to this and each receive a fruit salad every day for 10p.
Art Therapy and Arts for Health –Working
together in 2002
In the beginning there was no "art therapy". Post Freud, post Jung, post Second World War, there were artists working in the asylums for the mentally ill, They found there were patients who had not responded to anything much for years, who responded positively to making art work and began to get better. Out of this beginning, theories of art therapy developed, taking from the theories of Freud, Jung, Klein et al. to try to understand why people become ill, what helps them to recover and why being creative enhances this process. The relationship between the patient and the therapist was explored and was found to be a crucially important part of the work.
So now we have "arts therapists": art, music, drama, and dance-movement, intensively trained, state registered, and psychotherapeutically aware. But where are the jobs? The National Health Service has never regarded it as a top priority to develop psychological therapies, let alone encourage the nebulous concept of "art" therapy. As a consequence art therapists are very thinly represented in the NHS.
And then along comes "arts for health". Suddenly there is a realization that the creative activity that we all engage in, in some way, on some level, is good for us!
Perhaps us therapists had a language problem: "therapy" implies sickness, it’s for the ill, the marginalized, not for us. Perhaps we had an image problem, art therapy belongs in the asylums where mad people are, not us. "Arts for health" seems to speak of wellness not disease and that’s OK. But if we look at the places where we want to practice arts for health, yes we have the community plays, pageants and art exhibits, but we also have the hospitals, the hospices, the care homes and the day care centres, the places where the "sick" reside.
Art therapy and arts for health are both about wellness and sickness. Let’s take a holistic view. We will all suffer disease, it’s part of being human, and making something "creatively" out of our experience, helps.
The front page of the Independent newspaper on the 29th September
2001 featured a large picture of a child’s drawing of the twin towers burning on
September 11th . The caption read :
"For New York children life will never be the same again. Thousands have lost a
mother or father. Many have expressed their grief, their fears, their anger through
pictures".
In the accompanying article Dr James Thomson, head of a post traumatic stress disorder clinic, was quoted as saying: "Children’s drawings that capture the horror of traumatic events are part of the healing process rather than evidence of lasting psychological damage." Was this child doing art therapy or art for health, or both?
In Cornwall we are working together. The establishment of a countywide initiative
which from the start has aimed to include everyone interested in arts and health: artists and their patrons, arts therapists and their clients, educators and those being educated, healthcare workers and their patients, community workers and the community and anybody else that might be interested, has a huge potential. It will hopefully develop in a way that is sensitive and psychologically aware into a movement that empowers people to make real and lasting improvements to our lives.
Annabel Aguirre
Art therapist and committee member of Arts for Health Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly