Tell us a bit about your journey to becoming a Conexus Associate delivering our Social Prescribing Qualification:
It was in the heady days, when social prescribing was just being adopted by the NHS, and was working with the trailblazers who have developed social prescribing. In my case, and that of Bromley by Bow where I work, we had been social prescribing since 1997. Anyway, the NHS brought Conexus, the University of East London and Bromley by Bow together to develop the first Level 3 qualification for social prescribing link workers. We were the ones that shaped the content of the modules, and I have been developing the curriculum and teaching on it ever since.
What is the best bit about helping people become qualified Social Prescribers?
I really enjoy facilitating the discussions in the teaching sessions, supporting the social prescribing link workers developing their conceptual understanding based on their practice. I hope that through the course they gain a strong theoretical underpinning and can become persuasive advocates for social prescribing.
Can you describe a situation where Social Prescribing has made an impact?
I think there are perhaps very few clients that have passed through the social prescribing journey where it hasn’t had an impact. And over 2 million people have been social prescribed in the past five years….that’s a lot of individual impact, and in many cases the benefits have been felt by family and friends, not to mention their GPs, nurses and healthcare assistants!
Why are you an advocate for Social Prescribing?
Because it supports people with what really matters to them. The social prescribing link worker is the ONLY professional that is genuinely ‘person centred’ that has NO AGENDA. The agenda is entirely dictated by the client. It is odd that this should be such a unique role. If it didn’t exist we’d have to invent it…oh, that’s funny, that’s just what we did!
And anything else about you or your approach…….
Of course social prescribing isn’t just about individuals, its about neighbourhoods, communities, about people coming together to make conditions between in the localities in which they live. Social prescribing needs to relate to community development and community activism a little more than it does.
It also needs to really be listened to inside the NHS, inside GP practices, to help them shift to a more bio-psychosocial model of health, one that understands the person as a whole being, and a social being, and not just a diagnosis and a medical condition.