This is an invitation for you to talk. You’d be surprised how hard it can be sometimes! To talk is so essential in our society that we have almost forgotten how to do it.
We live in a fast-paced world. Everyone is very busy doing their job or taking care of their family. We all have a moment during the day when we feel a little bit stressed, anxious or we don’t simply know how to cope with all the tasks that we need to accomplish.
Every job has its own advantages and disadvantages and in order to be effective in any workplace, we need to transform the possible drawbacks into benefits. It’s not easy to cope with stress at any workplace, more so when working in health can social care… sometimes all we really want is to find someone that can understand how we feel. Here at Askham, we work together to understand the difficulties of our residents and of our staff and to help them surpass each challenge. But in order to do this, we all need to talk.
Everyone across Askham is encouraged to discuss their problems so that together we find the best solutions. Askham Village Community is seeking to change the attitude towards the way we see mental health and this is why we supported the Time to Change campaign – not just for February, but for always.
Sometimes it’s difficult to tackle this subject, so we don’t try to be too invasive. Some times we don’t realise we are struggling and we need help from others to make us want to talk a little bit. There are other times we know exactly what we are feeling, but we simply don’t want to discuss it. We don’t need to be forced or force others… but if we see somebody who is sad, who changes their mood rapidly or anything else that seems odd, maybe it’s time to sit near them and ask them if they had a good day. It’s not necessarily important to know their problem, maybe what they need is a distraction, or someone to show they care… so we offer it to them! Talk about knitting, playing tennis or prepare a cup of tea together!
There are so many ways to make a person feel better. We need to be creative and have patience. We encourage each other to get out of our bubbles and see how everyone around us is doing. It’s about seeing, perceiving and acting. It’s about caring and, within a community, caring goes hand in hand with communication. We invite you to communicate more with the people around you and to understand their fears.
And in case you are the one having difficulties in saying what you’re thinking, know that we are always here. Don’t be ashamed to talk about any problems that you might have. You never know if the person in front of you isn’t experiencing the same feelings, but they’re too afraid to talk about them. It’s Time to Talk month every month at Askham.
We want to thank those from Time to Change for the posters and the video materials.