Yesterday I had the pleasure of delivering a talk to two groups of Pharmacy students at UCLan in Preston. The topic was to be discussed was long term conditions and delivering medication, either as a carer of someone with a long term condition, or as a user of such services. I qualified on both levels.
The students listened quite attentively, and made this attention clear by the questions and comments when came at end of the session. All in all, an enjoyable experience, which caused me later that evening to consider the difference between these students and Social Work students to whom I also deliver the same, or similar talks.
As a longish time member of Comensus at UCLan, I have become accustomed to delivering a variety of talks to Social Work students at both the Preston campus and the one at Burnley. For those of you unfamiliar with Lancashire, both towns are about fifteen miles apart, and similar in their demographic make up. Where they differ however is in the make up of the student groups we talk to.
In general, the ones at Preston are average age students. Some of them straight from school, others have taken a gap year, some have done some work in a social or health environment, but in general they are all of the same age group. Young - well, by my geriatric condition everyone is young!
The students from Burnley are different though, and always have been since we started to teach there. They have almost all done some previous health care or home care work. Many of them have personal experience of having used social care in their own family situations, or currently work part time in mental health or social health institutions. The difference in the age of the two student groups has always been noticeably marked.
Many of the younger ones from Preston come to the course with a view of Social Workers and Social Work conditioned by the media, and frequently little other experience. As we well know, the media are always on the lookout to spear a Social Worker, whether or not it is justified by closer examination or not. 'Social Worker news' sells newspapers, and that is the whole reason for newspapers. The point is though, that these students view is coloured by what they see and read in the press and on the 'box', and this affects their outlook on the course, and also on us as service users and carers. They often, and I stress that this is not always the case, they often come with a view of service users and carers which is based only on what they have seen and read, and not from any direct personal experience.
The same is not true of the students from Burnley. Because they come to us at a later stage in their lives, they have seen things, done things, been involved with and had to deal with life, and all its problems. As such, they appear to be more able to accept what we service users, and their lecturers, tell them. This is not to say that they accept blindly what they are told, far from it, they frequently discuss with us from the vantage point of experience, and this makes a very big difference in their learning process.
Students coming into degree courses with some real life experience in care or health services are more able to understand what is being said to them. They are more able to enter into meaningful discussions with lecturers, us, and the rest of their cohort. Evidence of their understanding is clearly seen in the presentation work, whether in groups or individually, and their individual written work. It displays a level of understanding not always present in the younger students.
So, what I am suggesting is this. Should acceptance onto a social work degree be conditional upon either, some real life experience of having used social or health care, or perhaps simply accepting those students who are much older than the average nineteen or twenty year old?
Saturday 28 February 2015
Friday 27 February 2015
Done - But Not Yet Dusted
Well, it's taken a hell of a long time, but at last the long awaited book is finished. That is to say that the writing is done, and I have proof read it and added bits here and there to make it sound like English, so now comes the hard bit, so they say.
The writing of the book has taken just about a year, I think, if my memory is still serving me correctly. I started last year, and now that this year is here (and apparently to stay) - well, yes, it's been about a year in the writing.
One of the amazing things about it is the number of absolute rubbish things I wrote in it in the first place. I discovered early on that some of the things I had written have apparently come straight out of my head and onto the page with any intervening process. Which has meant that some of the actual sentences I wrote do not make any sense at all. Bit like this blog I suppose.
I know how it happened though. I had a thought and started to write it down in as quick a fashion as I could, then half way through the writing of the sentence another thought would come bounding into the old brain, and I would start to write that sentence down. The nett result is that some of the words in a sentence do not appear to have any logic in their positioning in the sentence. Anyway, it's now corrected and I have sent it to a really nice man who said he would do a grammar check on it.
Chris (the man doing the proof reading) is a published writer himself and in his own words, a "Grammar Nazi" which is great for me, as I do need someone with that level of knowledge and understanding to take a knife to the whole thing.
I just hope he doesn't get too cheesed off with the process he will be undertaking, as I want an opinion of what the book reads like as well as how badly written it is. I shall have to be careful though. He comes from Yorkshire, and they can be a bit funny like that.
I could very well hear something I am not really wishing to here, but that's one of the joys of writing I suppose. Time will tell, I hope....
The writing of the book has taken just about a year, I think, if my memory is still serving me correctly. I started last year, and now that this year is here (and apparently to stay) - well, yes, it's been about a year in the writing.
One of the amazing things about it is the number of absolute rubbish things I wrote in it in the first place. I discovered early on that some of the things I had written have apparently come straight out of my head and onto the page with any intervening process. Which has meant that some of the actual sentences I wrote do not make any sense at all. Bit like this blog I suppose.
I know how it happened though. I had a thought and started to write it down in as quick a fashion as I could, then half way through the writing of the sentence another thought would come bounding into the old brain, and I would start to write that sentence down. The nett result is that some of the words in a sentence do not appear to have any logic in their positioning in the sentence. Anyway, it's now corrected and I have sent it to a really nice man who said he would do a grammar check on it.
Chris (the man doing the proof reading) is a published writer himself and in his own words, a "Grammar Nazi" which is great for me, as I do need someone with that level of knowledge and understanding to take a knife to the whole thing.
I just hope he doesn't get too cheesed off with the process he will be undertaking, as I want an opinion of what the book reads like as well as how badly written it is. I shall have to be careful though. He comes from Yorkshire, and they can be a bit funny like that.
I could very well hear something I am not really wishing to here, but that's one of the joys of writing I suppose. Time will tell, I hope....
Thursday 15 January 2015
Names in Print
One of the things I do to keep the grey matter occupied is to do occasional voluntary work with a service user/carer group at the University of Central Lancashire in Preston (UCLan). I've been doing it now for a few years and recently I volunteered to do some work with one of the senior lectures in Social Work at the uni. To tell the truth, she asked everyone and I was the only person who held their hand up.
The lecturer is writing a book for student social workers and she wanted some input from a service user or carer, and that was me.
What an invigorating experience it was. I have done a bit of writing in the past, but only for my own pleasure, though a couple of things have been published. Anyway, this had to be right. Not enough to express a glib impression or half thought out idea. This needed to be thoughtfully written and absolutely spot on in terms of grammar etc. So, today the final version of the chapter I have been working on is being put together, and it was such a pleasant surprise to see my name in print at the top of the chapter, along with the lecturer.
Feels good. Might consider doing a bit more if I am asked.
Now I need to get back to finishing off writing the book I've been working on for some months. I've finished the actual 'story', now I need to re-read and edit it, and that so far, is proving almost as hard as the original writing was.
I've got 165,000 words on paper so far, and can't see there being many more. Back to the grindstone!!
Sunday 4 January 2015
New Year, new things to do
Well, I suppose technically it was a new year several days ago, but this is the first time for ages that I have put anything like pen to paper, so it is almost a new year.
Things progress sometimes, don't they? Like the stuff I have been doing this past few months. I have finally decided to write the story of my grand mother which I have been threatening to do for some years now. As I get older and older it seems like a good idea to get it done, before I forget how to use a computer, I suppose.
Went to Australia last year and had a marvellous time in both Melbourne and Sydney. What truly fantastic cities they both are. People are wonderful too. I landed in Melbourne and stayed there for a week then caught a train for an eleven hour journey through the most wonderful countryside to arrive about seven in the evening in Sydney, then had to find my hotel. It was pouring with rain when the train arrived and of course there was a mega queue for taxis, but I managed it in the end.
The hotel was in what Google maps said was the red light district of the city, Kings Cross. it wasn't that bad, in fact it was pretty good. My hotel was just across the border in Potts Point. If you need to go to Sydney, or just want to, then Potts Point is a brilliant place.
Spent a week in Sydney visiting libraries and the state archives where I found that not only are the staff fantastic, but the information I researched there threw some very interesting lights all over my grandmothers history. Gave me a lot of new information to include in the book.
Caught the train back to Melbourne for one night then hired a car to drive 100 miles out into the bush to a wonderful place called Alexandra where I spent a week. What a wonderful country area it is. Drove around the bush and up into the mountains where I scared myself witless driving along forest tracks - not to be recommended if you are in the sort of car I was in, a Toyota Camray automatic. Rubbish car and not suited to forest tracks at all. But it was an interesting journey. Brilliant waterfall at a place called Snobs Point. Worth going there just for the name.
After several days there I drove back to Melbourne and flew home. 52 hours of a journey. thanks Emirates for not really telling me I could have claimed a free hotel in Dubai for the fourteen hour stopover! But i got home in one piece.
Enjoyed it so much I might go back later this year.
Wednesday 1 October 2014
Just about recovered from a truly wonderful weekend spent with my wife rather large family in a most beautiful place. Cotherstone is a very old village in Teesdale in County Durham. It has a couple of pubs which are still going strong thanks to the locals who frequent it, but also the many visitors who come to the area each year. This is one of the pubs, The Fox and Hounds. Well worth a visit for a swift or leisurely pint of Black Sheep Ale or to stop over for a meal.
The tip there is one of the few enjoyable drives left in this overcrowded country. Come off the M6 at junction 38 and head across country towards the A1 and Scotch Corner, but come off to go through Kirby Stephen. The road is fast, if you want to go fast, and then heads up from the valley floor onto the tops of the valley before picking up the A66 before sliding off to the left near to Barnard Castle.
A few miles over the wild moorland road brings you into the village, and a welcome brew at my sister in laws home, and her children. Three daughters and four grand children. what a wonderful crowd. Old fashioned I may be, but it does my heart good to see such a war, supportive and mad family! Truly mad.
Not far away is the market town of Barnard Castle with a market square still used for a farmers market each week. Wonderful shops on either side of the main street selling the stuff shops used always to sell. Spent a few bob on a new shirt and a couple of second hand books which had taken my eye, not in the same shop I hasten to add.
Already looking forward to the next visit to the place, and to see a young lady who thinks my wife and I are wonderful.
The tip there is one of the few enjoyable drives left in this overcrowded country. Come off the M6 at junction 38 and head across country towards the A1 and Scotch Corner, but come off to go through Kirby Stephen. The road is fast, if you want to go fast, and then heads up from the valley floor onto the tops of the valley before picking up the A66 before sliding off to the left near to Barnard Castle.
A few miles over the wild moorland road brings you into the village, and a welcome brew at my sister in laws home, and her children. Three daughters and four grand children. what a wonderful crowd. Old fashioned I may be, but it does my heart good to see such a war, supportive and mad family! Truly mad.
Not far away is the market town of Barnard Castle with a market square still used for a farmers market each week. Wonderful shops on either side of the main street selling the stuff shops used always to sell. Spent a few bob on a new shirt and a couple of second hand books which had taken my eye, not in the same shop I hasten to add.
Already looking forward to the next visit to the place, and to see a young lady who thinks my wife and I are wonderful.
Thursday 18 September 2014
The End -- originally written in 2011, and then deleted by force at request of an alien.
What do you do when love goes? When the person you have lived with and loved for six years or more decides that she cannot cope with the illnesses you have attracted and that combined with the pressure of other things going on in her life means that the relationship you had has got to end?
I don't know the answer, but that is what I am currently living through. My partner I feel is suffering from depression due to the massive stresses she has been under from her work and other outside influences, but if I try to tell her my thoughts she will not accept it.
She sends out many conflicting messages, almost on a daily basis. She has constructed a picture of her life, of my life and of our life which really does not stand up to scrutiny. That picture she then reinforces with events that do not actually happen or are slanted in such a way that they fit the picture.
This is a sad and depressing time for me, because you see, I love her still. I think I always will. She has told me twice in the past months that she loves me, she has also repeated some words she wrote on a card for a birthday once.
"I don't want to spend a day in my life without you in it". Maybe they were not her original words, but they had a profound effect on me, even five years later on.
Thursday 3rd March 2011
Tonight I asked Yvonne if she would like to go to the cinema tomorrow night and suggested a film we would both like to see. She made an excuse and said she thought that there was something she had agreed to do tomorrow, and to let her think about it.
I went into her bedroom and found that she had packed an overnight bag, without any nightwear in it. Last week she told me that a business colleague who has become a friend had asked her to stay over for the night. She told me that she had declined but if she felt threatened by me then she would. I think she has made arrangements with him to stay with him on Friday. She has three times this week sat in the car outside the house for up to forty minutes on her mobile phone. This is getting to be unbearable.
Her paranoia is now so bad that she is locking her bedroom door each night and during the day. Maybe she has cause to, but her behaviour is such that everything she does is telling me she does not want me around here.
The e mail she sent to me by accident after my operation was an eye opener. "I cannot understand why David is still hanging around" she wrote. Well, the truth is I still love her.
A friend said to me that a partnership is over when one of the people decides it is over. True. Nothing the other person can say or do will change that if the persons mind is made up. Hers seems to be. She is burning herself up with the number of hours she is spending with the man child, they see each other seven days a week. She has been out with him for days in the country and north wales, and then she comes home and ignores me.
This is a truly horrible existence.
I don't know the answer, but that is what I am currently living through. My partner I feel is suffering from depression due to the massive stresses she has been under from her work and other outside influences, but if I try to tell her my thoughts she will not accept it.
She sends out many conflicting messages, almost on a daily basis. She has constructed a picture of her life, of my life and of our life which really does not stand up to scrutiny. That picture she then reinforces with events that do not actually happen or are slanted in such a way that they fit the picture.
This is a sad and depressing time for me, because you see, I love her still. I think I always will. She has told me twice in the past months that she loves me, she has also repeated some words she wrote on a card for a birthday once.
"I don't want to spend a day in my life without you in it". Maybe they were not her original words, but they had a profound effect on me, even five years later on.
Thursday 3rd March 2011
Tonight I asked Yvonne if she would like to go to the cinema tomorrow night and suggested a film we would both like to see. She made an excuse and said she thought that there was something she had agreed to do tomorrow, and to let her think about it.
I went into her bedroom and found that she had packed an overnight bag, without any nightwear in it. Last week she told me that a business colleague who has become a friend had asked her to stay over for the night. She told me that she had declined but if she felt threatened by me then she would. I think she has made arrangements with him to stay with him on Friday. She has three times this week sat in the car outside the house for up to forty minutes on her mobile phone. This is getting to be unbearable.
Her paranoia is now so bad that she is locking her bedroom door each night and during the day. Maybe she has cause to, but her behaviour is such that everything she does is telling me she does not want me around here.
The e mail she sent to me by accident after my operation was an eye opener. "I cannot understand why David is still hanging around" she wrote. Well, the truth is I still love her.
A friend said to me that a partnership is over when one of the people decides it is over. True. Nothing the other person can say or do will change that if the persons mind is made up. Hers seems to be. She is burning herself up with the number of hours she is spending with the man child, they see each other seven days a week. She has been out with him for days in the country and north wales, and then she comes home and ignores me.
This is a truly horrible existence.
Homeless
Sunday 20th March 2011
Never thought this would happen, but here I am homeless.
It happened last week when Yvonne phoned me whilst I was in a meeting at Preston. (10th March) Told me she had had enough and that my clothes were packed and in one of her empty houses across from where I had been living.
By 8pm that night I was settling into a room in a hostel for the homeless and feeling more like death than ever before in my life.
It hasn't been much better since then other than the massive amount of support and sympathy I have had from friends, family and colleagues. How she could make me homeless eight weeks before I am due to start cancer treatment is beyond belief. Such a level of cruelty and selfishness is hard to comprehend. And now she is trying again to control what I do and who I tell about my situation.
She is trying hard to paint a picture to all and sundry that my drinking has lead to mental instability (well she should know as she is a practising psychologist), and that life was intolerable with me.
The truth is a bit more prosaic. She became bored with our normal life and is intent on seeking the thrills of a younger newer relationship. She has always been this way and will end up a lonely old woman with no friends. She has few at the moment due to her behaviour over the years. Even her longest standing friend has refused to comment on a long complaint she sent to her about me.
Neglects to tell the whole story that she decided of her own accord that our relationship was over, just happened to coincide with the onset of a semi romantic liaison with a new man in her life. He is 16 years younger than her and together they have made my life a misery for the past year with their sniggering, staying at his house until 2am, going off for days out together. Sharing dirty jokes, blue movies generally behaving like 14 year olds. In truth that is his mentality. She cannot seem to understand that her behaviour has in large part contributed to my feelings of anger and despair.
She has only wanted me around this past few months for the sake of her new business she is starting. Well now she has blown it.
The crunch came when I sent her details of some of the rather sick web sites she and the man-child had been trawling through during the time they were working together on a legal paper they were concocting. She blew! I am homeless.
What part of "I love you" includes "but your clothes are now across the road and you are homeless eight weeks before you are due to start your cancer treatment?"
Difficult to know really.
Never thought this would happen, but here I am homeless.
It happened last week when Yvonne phoned me whilst I was in a meeting at Preston. (10th March) Told me she had had enough and that my clothes were packed and in one of her empty houses across from where I had been living.
By 8pm that night I was settling into a room in a hostel for the homeless and feeling more like death than ever before in my life.
It hasn't been much better since then other than the massive amount of support and sympathy I have had from friends, family and colleagues. How she could make me homeless eight weeks before I am due to start cancer treatment is beyond belief. Such a level of cruelty and selfishness is hard to comprehend. And now she is trying again to control what I do and who I tell about my situation.
She is trying hard to paint a picture to all and sundry that my drinking has lead to mental instability (well she should know as she is a practising psychologist), and that life was intolerable with me.
The truth is a bit more prosaic. She became bored with our normal life and is intent on seeking the thrills of a younger newer relationship. She has always been this way and will end up a lonely old woman with no friends. She has few at the moment due to her behaviour over the years. Even her longest standing friend has refused to comment on a long complaint she sent to her about me.
Neglects to tell the whole story that she decided of her own accord that our relationship was over, just happened to coincide with the onset of a semi romantic liaison with a new man in her life. He is 16 years younger than her and together they have made my life a misery for the past year with their sniggering, staying at his house until 2am, going off for days out together. Sharing dirty jokes, blue movies generally behaving like 14 year olds. In truth that is his mentality. She cannot seem to understand that her behaviour has in large part contributed to my feelings of anger and despair.
She has only wanted me around this past few months for the sake of her new business she is starting. Well now she has blown it.
The crunch came when I sent her details of some of the rather sick web sites she and the man-child had been trawling through during the time they were working together on a legal paper they were concocting. She blew! I am homeless.
What part of "I love you" includes "but your clothes are now across the road and you are homeless eight weeks before you are due to start your cancer treatment?"
Difficult to know really.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)