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Acting for Health

This year, DIY Gamechangers are developing an exciting new initiative called ‘Acting for Health’. 

DIY Gamechangers are working with film-makers Hilary Easter-Jones and Ian Dean to co-create three short films on the themes of:

• Effective communication
• Lived Experience Leadership
• 5 Ways to Health and Wellbeing

Everybody at DIY Gamechangers has been bringing in lots of ideas for the films. They are based on peoples’ lived experiences of the healthcare system.

We are creating postive impacts on health inequalities

Acting for Health builds on the learning and experience gained by DIY Gamechangers delivering training with medical students and Occupational Therapy students over a number of years. Whilst training has always been very well-received – it is always short-term, one-off and has shown ongoing issues with communication and understanding amongst professionals. As well as those training to enter the medical professions.

Many of these professionals have never had the experience of working alongside people with learning disabilities before completing DIY training. This is why DIY Leaders were keen to create training resources and tackle Health Inequalities by…

• Enabling Health professionals to become better informed through working with people with lived experience of learning disability 
• Supporting healthcare professionals to develop more inclusive communication skills, leading to improved communication. 
• Increased communication and understanding, leading to better health and social care outcomes for people with learning disabilities. 

These are important issues to DIY members, because they all face challenges getting the right support from the health care system.

Some feedback from Occupational Therapist Students who have took part in DIY sessions:

Mike, Adam, Anna, Charlotte, Amy and Molly were excellent facilitators. I felt the session was well thought out and engaging.”

Very interactive session, builds connections and awareness of differences in personalities, abilities etc”

Hearing about the different experiences was helpful for learning how to be more intentional about communication”

You guys are inspiring thank you so much for coming! I’ve learnt so much from hearing about your lived experiences and will keep it in mind during my work”

Research shows that people with learning disabilities, have worse physical and mental health than people without a learning disability. They are more likely to experience a number of health conditions.

Here is a section of a piece of research which examined the barriers to healthcare access for people with learning disabilities:

Barriers preventing people with a learning disability getting good quality healthcare, include lack of accessible transport links, patients not being identified as having a learning disability, staff having little understanding about learning disability, failure to recognise someone with a learning disability is unwell, failure to diagnose correctly, anxiety or lack of confidence for people with a learning disability, lack of joint working from different care providers, not enough involvement allowed from carers and inadequate aftercare/follow-up care. – (Heslop et al. 2013; Tuffrey-Wijnes et al. 2013; Allerton and Emerson 2012)

The Project So Far

We have been developing the project across a number of stages:

1. DIY Gamechangers worked with Molly, to come up with lots of ideas for the films and resources. They used drama to explore their own experiences of dealing with health professionals. The activities included playing the character of doctor and patient, researching other videos used by the NHS, and exploring lived experience of healthcare through frozen pictures.
2. Film-maker Hilary Easter-Jones, spent a great deal of time planning each film in order to make the process more accessible to non film makers. She worked with the group to create storyboards for each of the films, they shared ideas with each other and talked about how it should look. On this project Hilary stepped into more of a director/producer role, in order to get the content required for the films.
3. After this, a very busy and creative session at the Angel Centre took place, where Hilary, joined by Ian Dean, filmed the material devised by the group.
4. Each film was then shared with the group as a work in progress, and everyone offered their feedback and suggestions.
5. The first versions of two of the films were shared with a group called ‘Listening to People’ at sessions on the 18th and 20th March. We discussed the films and listened to feedback which we will then use to work on the final versions of the films.

Live and Direct from DIY members

DIY Gamechangers have explained that the films help them to‘use our voice, see us and not the disability’ and have really enjoyed the opportunity, to learn more about using professional video cameras, during the filming day with Hilary and Dean.

Also, during the process DIY members have been having many invaluable discussions, and we captured some of what they’ve had to say and we wanted to share those with you.

What Happens Next?

During the Summer Term DIY Leaders will be trialling the new resources with Medical Students at the University of Manchester. Sessions will take place on Friday 25th April and Friday 9th May. We will gain feedback on how to use the resources to make the most impact with healthcare professionals.  

Once the films and resources are finished we will start using them, and testing them in our regular training work, with health practitioners at Universities of Salford and Manchester.   

We will also be working with graphic artist Sarah Bray to co-create Training Resources that we can use in training and partnership projects. This will enable health professionals to explore the issues highlighted in the films. 

DIY will be able to use the resources within our own training and advocacy work. We will also make them available to universities, advocacy groups and others seeking to reduce health inequalities, through improving knowledge and awareness amongst health professionals.   

The films and resources will be posted on our website and shared across our social media channels. We will look into other opportunities to publish the training and resources, within health and social care settings, across Greater Manchester. 

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Click here, to visit our DIY Emerging Gamechangers page to read more about what they have been up to!