Tag Archives: mental health

Going that extra mile – 7Y2D COVID-19 Diaries Week 37

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There is no question that the last 9 months have had a huge impact on the mental wellbeing of all in the UK and worldwide. The rapid change to our usual routines left many feeling extremely discombobulated and the uncertainty of knowing when we can get back to anything that even vaguely resembles our old “normal” can lead to a sense of a loss of control, which itself can drive anxiety levels sky-high.

As we’ve all adapted to a life that is a great deal more home- and family-based than many of us are used to, so have many organisations similarly changed how they work in order to continue providing their services in whatever way they can. The benefits from doing 4 weeks of Stagecoach on Zoom were absolutely tangible for G and M, and it was encouraging to hear them giggling their way through the 3 hours of classes on a Friday evening. They’re delighted to be able to be back to “real life” classes this week and seeing some old familiar faces, both teachers and friends.

One organisation that has definitely gone the extra mile is Over The Wall. I’ve written numerous times about the amazing impact their camps have had on G and M over the last few years and this year was no different. It would have been so easy for them to simply shrug their shoulders when it became clear that camps couldn’t be held as normal, but instead they rolled up their sleeves and worked hard to produce the fantastic online “Camp in the Cloud” sessions for all who had applied for camp places. The week-long activities broke up the mundane experience of life in lockdown and challenged both children in a different way that they very much needed. That opportunity to connect with other young people who really understood how they might be feeling once again proved invaluable. Some might think that this charity’s determination to still deliver their regular offering as best they could despite the circumstances is going the extra mile, and I wouldn’t disagree, but I’m actually speaking about that something more they’ve now gone on to do.

Following the resounding success of their online camps, OTW has gone that one step further and continued to hold cabin chat sessions via Zoom on a monthly basis. G and M were both keen to participate and that hour or so at the start of each month has been a real lifeline for them. Cabin chat was open to anyone who had attended the virtual camps no matter where they are based and so both children have found themselves in groups with others from across the UK. It has been an hour to chat, laugh, accept and set challenges and just generally share how the last few months have and are affecting them. They’ve both made new friends and once again the boost to their mental wellbeing has been evident immediately. The planned chats have now finished, but we’ve all got our fingers tightly crossed that they will start again in the New Year.

Of course, none of these things could happen without the dedicated team of staff and volunteers at Over The Wall and we can’t thank them enough for going that extra mile and once again supporting G and M as best they can. Over The Wall have announced today that they are planning to continue with the virtual camps next year and beyond, even once the residential camps are able to start up again, which is quite simply the best news ever.

Left in Tiers – 7Y2D COVID-19 Diaries Week 36

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Yesterday’s announcement of the proposed tiers that the various councils will be going into next week when second lockdown ends has left many up in arms about what central government is suggesting. Social media is buzzing with commentary, criticism and complaints about the allocations made, especially with the change to rules for the Christmas period adding to the general confusion.

The news for our area has come as no surprise to me at all as I’ve been predicting our tier for the last 8 or 9 days and have been proved correct. To be perfectly honest, the tier level we end up in makes little or no difference to us. Since lockdown began 9 months ago, we have reduced our activities outside of our local area and taken every precaution we can when we have to be out and about. I now work predominantly from home, with just 1 day in our Head Office weekly to ensure that there continues to be a finance presence there, which gives me an opportunity to catch-up with colleagues face-to-face and not just via Zoom. M and G continue to enjoy being back at school and despite the odd hiccup with required self-isolation or the alternatives to traditional learning needed, are thriving in both their academic and extra-curricular activities.

The next big question for us all is about Christmas and my Mum and I have had many lengthy conversations about this to date. We’re both very much of the opinion that having been so cautious over the last 9 months, it would be a shame to throw it all away by having our usual family get-together without due consideration. No conclusion has been reached as yet, but I’m very much leaning towards spending the time at home in our separate bubbles, with a organised present opening and family quiz via Zoom. It won’t be the celebration we would love to have, but it may be the one that will best allow us to have a better one next year.

Today on our local radio I heard this comment, which I understand was made by Welsh First Minister, Mark Drakeford about the opportunity to break from our assigned tiers and meet together in social bubbles specifically during the Christmas period: that we should be choosing to do the best we can do and not the least we can do in the current climate. For some, this will unquestionably be getting together with family members over Christmas for the sake of their mental health and wellbeing, but for others that decision may simply add to the anxiety they feel about an increased risk to either themselves or to loved ones and so they opt to stay at home. Both will be the right choice for those individuals and we need to not judge others on the decisions they choose to make.

Lockdown 2.0 – 7Y2D COVID-19 Diaries Week 33

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My predictions weren’t quite accurate as I had thought we might be heading into a second lockdown either in the lead up to, or during October half-term, and whilst my Welsh family, friends and colleagues did so, Boris held off for another week before finally giving in to what had seemed to be inevitable to many.

I know that there are many out there who do not think this is a good idea or what is needed, but I’m not in that camp. Working for a regional care provider for adults with learning disabilities, I am seeing the increasing infection rates of COVID first-hand. Fortunately, I’m not on the frontline and despite my own health risks, can continue to work from home, much as I have been since our first lockdown back in March. For those naysayers out there, the risk is very real to those who are vulnerable and this lockdown is an attempt to help them as best we can.

Lockdown 2.0 looks very different this time round. G and M have gone back to school after half-term, and after the required self-isolation that kicked it off early for them, though all bets are off for how long that will be the case. This continued opportunity for learning as well as socialising with their friends is undoubtedly essential for their mental well-being and the benefits of being in a routine installed by someone other than Mum are also easy to see. Their out-of-school activities have paused again, though their Stagecoach classes are moving to Zoom from tomorrow. G and M are as intrigued about quite how that will work as I am, and I’ve no doubt an update will follow in due course.

Mike is also still working, despite our initial doubts as to whether he would be able to or not. We had been preparing for the possibility of a return to furlough, but he is delighted to be able to continue to work and is squeezing in as many valuations and surveys as he can at the moment. Both he and the children continue to take precautions to reduce the risk of them bringing the virus home to me and have been good at adapting to our new routines.

I’ll be honest, this lockdown is not looking all that different to the last 33 weeks or so for me. We haven’t been spending hours out shopping or at the pub, and we haven’t been spending time with anyone other than occasionally my Mum. Whilst I’ve stayed with her 3 times since March, she hasn’t set foot inside our house and nothing will change there for the foreseeable future. We will continue to do our daily exercise, although that becomes less attractive now we’re heading into winter and seeing less sun.

Whatever your thoughts about, or approach to, this second national lockdown, stay safe and keep looking after yourselves and those who are higher risk around you.

Keeping in Touch – 7Y2D COVID-19 Diaries Week 16

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How have you found keeping in touch whilst we’ve been on lockdown?

Zoom has certainly come into its own since March, with businesses, individuals and groups using this technology for just about every event and occasion imaginable. I find myself on this video conferencing platform almost daily with a combination of management meetings, team meetings, webinars and our Sunday morning post-Church service “coffee chat”. We’ve used it for quiz nights and catching up with friends in Canada, although a number of those have also been accessed through FaceTime, Facebook Live and YouTube. I’m even about to embark on some Zoom interviews for a role within our finance team at work, although I’ve still to work out how to facilitate the excel-based competency test we usually ask candidates to complete under timed conditions in our office.

M has become an expert on MS Teams as his secondary school has finally managed to get itself organised enough to run some “live” lessons for some subjects in the last 5 weeks or so of the school year. He also uses it for his weekly lesson with our local dyslexia centre, who had everything in place as soon as the Easter holidays were over, and have offered him a week’s worth of daily lessons in August so that he doesn’t miss out too much on the learning and support they would have been doing with him since lockdown started.

G will be using MS Teams tomorrow as her tutor has organised an online face-to-face farewell session for her tutor group before she has an unquestionably late induction to the 6th form at her current school in case she decides to stay on there in September. For G, there has been very little contact with the school over the last 15 weeks. There has been no active teaching or engagement with the 300 students in her year group and many of them will not be returning in September as they move on to other schools and apprenticeships for the next step in their studies. Whilst we thought that the contact with M from school had been mediocre at best, for G it has been devastatingly pitiful and has done absolutely nothing to give her any semblance of any support during what has been a challenging time for us all, let alone for those students where the opportunity to take GCSEs and A-levels was suddenly snatched away.

As I mentioned last week, M took his first steps back to life as normal as it possibly can be these days with a return to school for a one hour session yesterday lunchtime. He was in with 8 other members of his tutor group, including 2 of his closest friends and it was a great opportunity to catch up and actually see other people for the first time in months. He wore his face mask into school, but chose to take it off during the session as the desks in the classroom had all been spaced 2 metres apart. He enjoyed the time they had and it gave him a much-needed change of scenery too.

We also met up with my Mum for the first time properly since lockdown began, although it was via a socially distanced cup of tea in our garden – Mum bringing her own flask of hot water, tea-bags, mug and chair with her! I have been either calling or texting her daily to give her regular updates about how we all are, and weekly Face Times with the children as well to give her and them an opportunity to chat. Sunday was the first chance for us all to be together for an extended length of time in person, something that I think we all needed. The weather wasn’t quite as glorious as it has been in previous weeks, but it was dry enough for long enough to allow us to sit out comfortably together and enjoy that time.

Working from Home – 7Y2D COVID-19 Diaries Week 12

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The last 12 weeks have seen thousands of people starting to work from home on a much more regular basis than they might have done before and I know that for some, that situation will continue for the foreseeable future, if not as a permanent change to their work location going forward. The reality of lockdown has meant that businesses have had to review and consider how they work, and can work in the future, especially where this means that potential savings could be made and help them to survive the current financial crisis.

As I mentioned in last week’s post, I am carrying on working from home and will be for an as-yet-to-be-determined amount of time. Working for a charity within the care sector, we are taking a very cautious approach with our work processes in order to protect our service users as much as we can and that same approach is being applied to those of us who work in the Head Office. Our Board of Trustees and Senior Management Team (SMT) are anticipating that our regular meetings will continue to be virtual for several months and our Head Office will continue to be manned by a skeleton staff whilst the rest of us work from home until further notice.

Working from home can come with its own challenges, be that about motivation and focus, or working excessive hours because it can be difficult to switch off mid-task; or, these days, the juggling act required to manage workloads, team dynamics and meetings alongside homeschooling and childcare. I attended a webinar a few weeks ago run by recruitment consultants, Robert Half, which looked at the pressures that working parents have felt during the lockdown period and the importance of changing the way we look at things for our own mental wellbeing.

One of the key messages from this webinar was that those of us who are working parents should aim to be a “good enough” parent, rather than a “perfect” parent. We may have started lockdown with ambitions to conquer the combined dizzying heights of homeschooling and working from home, but many, if not all, have struggled to achieve their own goals and the knock-on effect on motivation and wellbeing has been huge. Seeking virtual support from friends and family as well as setting more realistic goals for what can be achieved each day and not beating ourselves up about if we don’t manage to tick everything off the list is critical.

There were also some great suggestions about how to help yourself and your children get through lockdown. My favourite ones included using your usual commute time for some me-time however that looks like for you; or as a family making notes of the things we’re missing doing the most and saving those into an empty box or jar. Once we’re out of lockdown completely, you can pick those notes out and work your way through each experience. At the end of the day, succeeding at working from home might not look quite as you imagined it would, but getting through this time relatively unscathed is, without a doubt, the most important thing of all.