{"id":21762,"date":"2020-12-26T08:00:10","date_gmt":"2020-12-26T08:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=21762"},"modified":"2020-12-15T15:11:57","modified_gmt":"2020-12-15T15:11:57","slug":"heroes-arent-allowed-to-be-scared","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=21762","title":{"rendered":"Heroes of the year – mental health chaplains"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Every day over the festive period, UniteLIVE will highlight a different \u00e2\u20ac\u0098hero of the year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122.\u00c2\u00a0Today we honour mental health chaplains, who have played a pivotal role in comforting patients and health care staff especially during the pandemic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back in May, we spoke to mental health chaplain Graham Peacock, who told UniteLIVE what it was like working on the frontline of the virus. Find out more in our feature below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

‘HEROES AREN’T ALLOWED TO BE SCARED’<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

When UNITElive speaks to people on the phone these days, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re often at home, and you can hear the familiar hubbub of domestic life \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the children calling out for attention, the frenzied yapping of a pet dog, the hiss of a kettle.<\/p>\n

But this week when we catch up with mental health chaplain and Unite member Rev Graham Peacock, the usual background sounds are replaced by the song of birds, blissfully unaware of how the world has dramatically changed around them.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m in a field full of cows and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just gorgeous,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he says. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bEarlier I was in a field in the middle of the moors this morning on the edge of North Yorkshire. And then I was sat in a garden in Wensleydale. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s really paradise \u00e2\u20ac\u201c I get to drive through areas of outstanding natural beauty and its work. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s my job to do that. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s lovely.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

Graham works for a trust in Yorkshire and normally, he does his rounds in mental health wards and care homes, and does a lot of work in the community as well. Since the lockdown was eased earlier this month, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s now permitted to meet people individually outdoors two meters apart. Just as before the pandemic, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll drive in some cases more than 50 miles in all sorts of weather conditions to give people comfort and counsel.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re just trying to find ways to connect with people,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he tells UNITElive. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bSome people with mental health conditions struggle with phones as it is but in areas like this the software I use just doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t always work because you can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get a signal.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

He recounts a meeting he had earlier this week someone he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d supported before \u00e2\u20ac\u201c just never in their own territory.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0098I met them in their field\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bI met them in their field. They would always refer to their field as the one place that they feel very connected to the world. It never actually twigged for me but now that I actually saw them in this space that they so often spoke about, I could see them where they were happy. When you go and see people in their territory, it can be quite profound.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

While the outdoor part of his working environment may be idyllic, Graham and other mental health chaplains are now facing some of the most testing times of their careers.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bTwo of the wards that we normally go into were exposed to the virus,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bOver a quarter of the people in those wards died.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bUnlike say palliative or acute chaplains, we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t often deal with people who are dying. We only support people with mental health conditions, and while we expect some people to die occasionally in mental health wards, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve had to evolve fast during this pandemic to deal with many people who are dying. Now, people on mental health wards have had to deal with deaths, where relatives can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t come into the ward. The shock from that could well be immense.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

Graham and his colleagues mostly now work from home, using phones and other forms of technology to connect with people. And while he says he generally handles stress well, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s had to adapt, like so many of us, to the challenges of home working.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bYou\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got a mission to support people \u00e2\u20ac\u201c but eight hours on the phone to people is quite hard. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThere was a period of about three weeks where I kind of crashed. I took a day off, went for an awful long walk, and I thought I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got to work from home differently.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re in a situation where you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have your normal breaks in your workplace. So if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re on your computer for an hour, perhaps you should look at it for 50 minutes. Then walk around. Make sure you stay hydrated and take exercise. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also vital to speak to your manager if you need to work flexibly to support the service and to support yourselves and your family. Thankfully the Trust I work for have been very supportive to those having to work from home.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

Unite Chaplains \u00e2\u20ac\u0098enormously helpful\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

For Graham, being part of Unite, which embraces the College of Healthcare Chaplains (CHCC), has been enormously helpful, especially in these unprecedented times.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been meeting virtually more frequently, just to share the developing position in the country and to talk about what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s working and what isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t; about how different trusts are being supportive of the chaplaincy service and how others are not supporting us and taking arbitrary decisions to exclude chaplains.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve even had leaders in the union beyond our immediate CHCC group, like [Unite regional officer] Steve Syson and [Unite lead professional officer] Jane Beach sit in in our virtual sessions. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something about that in a psychological sense that you truly feel that the union is with you. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s very powerful. I really feel being part of Unite means that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re all in this together.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

Graham said while the current crisis is devastating, he fears more still for the future; he worries that the aftershocks for many people, especially health and care workers, will linger for years to come.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0098Moral injury\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThere\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a concept called moral injury, where for example, if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re a clinician and you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re repeatedly asked to do things you normally wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do, it can affect you over time.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bSo normally in a mental health ward you might say to a patient, \u00e2\u20ac\u0098yes you can have an hour outside \u00e2\u20ac\u201c go out for an hour and come back.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 But for good reasons, they now have to restrict that. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll have to tell patients \u00e2\u20ac\u0098you might feel like you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re about to explode but I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t let you out\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 and then work on other strategies to support them. And they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to have to do that for a long period of time. It builds up a stress level.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe recognise that after this pandemic ends, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something that will come out \u00e2\u20ac\u201c in days, weeks, months, or even years \u00e2\u20ac\u201c in the form of trauma. They may suddenly become short-tempered, or they might have to take sick leave.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

For Graham, he believes the hero narrative in the NHS can in fact be profoundly damaging for health and other essential workers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 mental health.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bHeroes aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t allowed to be scared or frightened \u00e2\u20ac\u201c but we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got lots of people working in the mental health wards who are frightened. But because of this hero narrative, they feel they can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t admit it. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not helping people.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

And it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not just health workers who are experiencing a profound mental shift during this pandemic \u00e2\u20ac\u201c every single one of us has been affected in a big way.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bRight now people are really questioning what life is all about,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Graham explained. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bAnd not just in the sense that death may be close but also this sense of dislocation; that everything is closed off to us. My partner may have lost their job, all the protective factors I had before \u00e2\u20ac\u201d I could go to work, I could come back home, I could go to church, I could go to the pub, or the gym, or the coast \u00e2\u20ac\u201d they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re all gone.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s with these sorts of big philosophical dilemmas, as well as the smaller trials and tribulations of life, that chaplains can help. And that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why Graham believes the services he and his colleagues provide are absolutely vital at this time.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bMy job isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t about directly helping people; it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s about giving people the space to be themselves, to make their own connections. Sometimes people just need someone to sit with them, to say, \u00e2\u20ac\u0098I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m having a bad day. That life is not great right now. I can still function \u00e2\u20ac\u201c I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to be pathologised or go into a formal counselling situation but I just want someone to hear me\u00e2\u20ac\u2122.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

And while we may not all have the opportunity to speak to a chaplain, he has a message of hope for all us during this pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a clich\u0102\u00a9 but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so true \u00e2\u20ac\u201c it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s okay not to be okay,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bTalk to someone. It doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have to be a professional. Even if you might feel like that, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re never alone – don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ever give up.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

By Hajera Blagg @hajeranblagg <\/em><\/strong><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bHeroes aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t allowed to be scared or frightened \u00e2\u20ac\u201c but we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got lots of people working in the mental health wards who are frightened. But because of this hero narrative, they feel they can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t admit it. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not helping people.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21767,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[1295,1331,29],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21762"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21762"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21762\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27125,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21762\/revisions\/27125"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}