This blog was written after last years module two and reading it brings it all back...never thought I would be asked to speak the following year.
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Really
enjoyed today's session, the trepidation I felt when taking the leap for module
one has all but vanished, it’s making me hungry for more. Having filmed Helen
for NewHCvoices last year a lot of module one was in a way familiar by virtue
of having covered some of the ground before hand.
As I
tweeted, "joining SHCR was right out of my comfort zone…come on in the
waters lovely" ... being in the midst of academics and qualified medical
people is quite intimidating if you are me. From my perspective what academics do
is so alien I am convinced you must all be wizards:)
So as I had
fed back to the SHCR team for me having a look at Mod 2 before the WebEx was then going to give me
a bit more time to focus on the chat line and Twitter and still absorb the
content.
I certainly
read slower than most and also have to diligently proof read anything I tweet,
I still struggle with 5 letter words, and use tricks like "The Infra
Red" as an aid memoir in order to spell "Their" with the i and e the right
way round:) Once I discovered spell checkers I also discovered I love writing,
especially the discipline of Twitter.
One of the
most gratifying experiences on a personal note was having 2 of my tweets read
out by the team, the sense of genuinely being part of the conversation via
Tweets that distilled things for people was a real buzz and very empowering.
One tweet
was "chaos theory says it just takes the beat of a butterflies wing to
initiate a storm" the other " #SHCR is the big consultancy of the
future". I'ts genuinely so compelling to be around that much positive energy.
I
am just a bloke who works from home, so there is no team it's just me, I've
put in a huge amount of personal time developing my visual language for people
with learning disabilities over the last 4 years, then writing blogs about it
and trying, from my front room near Saffron Walden, to slowly gain traction in
the wider world via twitter.
It has been
a long process from a standing start, but slowly in the last 6 months I
started finding the odd person that got me and more importantly liked what I
had been doing.
One thing
led to another and thanks to Rachael Garvey I was introduced to new healthcare
voices last Sept, I went to an event of theirs in Birmingham where Helen was
speaking, filmed it as a gift, met Jodi and we clicked in an instant. Then she
sent me stuff about #SHFR and I thought "why not let’s have a go" and push a few personal boundaries.
My main
motivation for joining was very simple, my mission is to get my suicide
prevention tools into the NHS tool kit. I also have a series of other related
and joined up projects so thought this would be a brilliant way of being heard from the inside as the NHS behemoth had seemed so impenetrable.
This is the
thing that has really rocked my boat, I was wondering how I would get on with
module 2 as it was unfamiliar ground so I read the course notes as soon as
Helen put them out last night.
As I went
through what I expected to be alien concepts they were in fact detailing with
some precision the very strategies and thinking that has got me here writing this as a student. I have it seems been living module 2, and following the book
without having read it. It’s been life affirming to know I can trust my instincts’ and things I believe in others do too.
It's also fascinating to me that someone has deconstructed the intuitive into the material
in Mod 2, as that really does stop it feeling so lonely, you all get me.. and I
believe I have something of value to people to offer. Can always tell when I am happy I hum
and there has been a lot of that going recently.
I am about
to launch 3D software company (we all need a new career at 60! which has many
applications for the NHS, its been 6 years in development but I have a lot more
alliances to build first:)
