Tameside Health Day 2009
Tameside Health Day 2009
Text Version
Justin Bailey (Assistant Team Manager, Direct Payments)
Today is the unit half day and the staff get together once a year to do something a little different and this year it’s all about health promotion and health improvement so we’ve got a lot of stalls and activities that the staff can involved in today just to have some fun and consider the work life balance and look at options for healthy living and really get their hands dirty and get involved in things.
Katie Stopford (Social Worker, Younger Adult Assessment Team)
We’ve been involved in sharing ideas really I think they hand picked team from different teams across the unit they’ve all sort of shared ideas what we think the staff would enjoy on the day so things like physiotherapy, baking really things that staff can get involved in rather than just somebody stood there talking at them. I think the core of it really is sort of healthy body, healthy mind. You know if you’ve got a healthy body and you look after yourself you’re going to be better at your work, better at your job. So I think that was the whole idea behind it and increasing awareness really.
Nurse
What we’re trying to do is to work through the neck and shoulder tension we’re just trying to warm the muscles up and circulation and just get the muscles particularly around the neck and shoulders it tends to be the most common sort of area for people to hold the tension particularly anyone who spends periods of time driving or regularly spend a lot of time at desks. You tend to find the muscles in the tops of shoulders and neck do tend to get very tense in the neck and lead to things like headaches, stiffness in the neck and problems with movement so it really does help to try and loosen them up a bit.
Jayne Stokes (Service Unit Manager, Physical & Sensory Disability Services)
Within the unit we usually have twice a year an staff Awareness Day it’s about communicating with staff and it’s usually around the business that we do. Progress that we’ve made during the half year and what we will be doing in the next half year. But this year we’d thought we do something a little bit different we’ve got an objective within our Business Plan about raising awareness of the health improvement agenda with Service Users and Carers so we thought a good way to start that would be to raise awareness with staff, thinking about how they can keep themselves healthy, about their work life balance and just generally feeling better about coming to work.
Music
Steven Pleasant (Acting Chief Executive, Tameside Council)
Well it’s about lots of different ways of doing things that relax you and work out your work life balance really. So if you want to do knitting and I’ve just done three stitches of knitting for the first time in my life and it was great and felt it absolutely wonderful and I’ve seen my grandma doing knitting when I was a child and never thought I would ever have the opportunity to have a go at it. This is so much better than sitting in a room and having Power Point and doing my chalk and talk. I’ve actually seen what’s going on and experiencing all the different activities.
Lady 1
I’ve tried a bit of Reiki and that was really nice and I’ve been making some cards so that’s another thing I’ve been to have look at Doreen and planted a lettuce in the poly-tunnel so that’s what I’ve been doing today and I’m here doing health checks so I’m working and having pleasure all at the same time so that’s good.
Lady 2
I’ve had a facial, I’ve had a go at the Reiki, I’ve had a dig with Doreen, I’ve made my own wrap for dinner, had a smoothie. I’ve had a really lovely morning actually. Before I came I was a little bit sceptical thinking have I got time to fit this in because of everything I’ve got to do but actually I think it’s been really good I’ve really enjoyed it and it’s an opportunity to talk to one another as well and see one another out of the work environment so yeah I’ve got a lot out of it personally I’ve really enjoyed it.
Lady 3
We all keep putting off don’t we doing something to promote our health and you know get better health and when they have sessions like this and you can see what’s available and it’s brought to you and you can sign up for things I think that’s really good.
Man
I think it’s great cause also you find out about what’s happening in your area and you know you can see what different projects are going and health and fitness in Tameside, the parks, the leisure, the places you wouldn’t even know was in there. You know all these things are coming together to get the community together really in many ways.