Social prescribing for whole person care

Responding to an anxiety epidemic, there’s a growth in social prescribing with a spiritual wellbeing element. Esther Platt explores how it's working out locally.

Esther Platt

Esther works as a Senior Consultant for the Good Faith Partnership. She sits in the secretariat for the ChurchWorks Commission.

Two people sit at a table with their hands resting on top of it. One speaks to the other

Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash

Since 2001, Mental Health Awareness Week has been marked once a year in May. This year, the theme was anxiety - an increasingly relevant topic in a country that has endured three years of world-changing crises and the soaring cost of living. Research from the Mental Health Foundation has found that 1 in 10 UK adults feel hopeless about financial circumstances and more than one-third feel anxious.

For centuries, it has been recognised that spiritual well-being is closely tied to mental well-being. By spiritual wellbeing, I don’t mean organised religion. I mean our sense of relationship to a higher-power or reality beyond our own, and our sense of purpose and meaning in life, as Craig Ellison outlines it as in his paper Spiritual Well-Being: Conceptualization and Measurement.

In Man’s Search for Meaning holocaust survivor Victor Frankl compellingly makes the case that in a world of suffering, our survival depends on our sense of purpose, meaning and hope. Frankl coined the term ‘the self-transcendence of human existence’ by which he explained that human beings look for meaning beyond themselves, either in a cause, a person to love, or a higher power.

With an increased understanding of the holistic nature of wellbeing, and the value of spirituality, a new way of looking at health is emerging.

While modern psychologists are still building a clinical-grade evidence base on the value of spirituality, there is clear agreement that spiritual wellbeing is crucial for a good quality of life, especially for those who are facing adverse life events, as you can read on the US National Library of Medicine web site. Traditionally, health provision in the UK has focused exclusively on the physical, and more recently the mental. However, with an increased understanding of the holistic nature of wellbeing, and the value of spirituality, a new way of looking at health is emerging.

Social prescribing is one way in which this is being done, and across the country.

In social prescribing, local agencies such as charities, social care and health services refer people to a social prescribing link worker. Social prescribing link workers give people time, focusing on ‘what matters to me?’ to coproduce a simple personalised care and support plan. This involves ‘prescribing’ individuals to local community groups such as walking clubs, art classes, gardening groups and many other activities.

Churches are playing a crucial role making social prescribing happen. St Mary’s Church in Andover, offer a wellbeing course to members of the community who have been directed to them through the local GP surgery.

Members of Revival Fires Church in Dudley have been trained to offer Listening and Guidance support to those who are referred by a GP.

Beyond social prescribing, St John’s Hoxton in London offer the Sanctuary Mental Health course to their community which gives people an opportunity to share their experiences and find solidarity in their struggles.

Church provides a space where the breadth of our wellbeing, our desire for purpose, community and hope can be supported in a way that the NHS does not have capacity or experience to deliver. As the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, writes

"The issue of mental health is one that requires a holistic approach on an individual basis, incorporating as appropriate psychiatric, medical and religious support’.

Olivia Amartey, Executive Director for Elim, an international movement of Pentecostal churches adds,

‘I am convinced that there is no other organisation on earth that cares for the whole person, as well as the church. Its engagement with the statutory authorities, focussed on individuals’ well-being, provides an invaluable opportunity for a synchronised partnership to the benefit of all our communities.’

Jesus told his followers, ‘I have come so that you can have life and have it to the full’. This is the hope that animates churches. Christians find meaning and purpose in the hope of life, peace and justice that Jesus gives. Church can be a space where the complexity of hurt and suffering is acknowledged, and where we can find solidarity and support in the presence of those who can help us find purpose and meaning.

At ChurchWorks, a commission of leaders from the 15 biggest church denominations in the UK, we are excited by the prospect of more churches providing this space. On 18th May we held ChurchWorks for Wellbeing, in which we gathered over 300 church leaders to explore how the church can bring hope to our communities in this time. We shared stories of small and simple conversations, where offering a listening service, an art class or a food pantry enabled churches to give people in their community space to be, to grieve, to process and to grow. From the conference, it is our hope that we will see hundreds more churches start to engage in social prescribing and welcome their communities to access holistic wellbeing support.

At a time when anxiety is rife, and it is so easy to feel despair and hopelessness, the church offers a vital resource to us: a place where our spiritual wellbeing can be nurtured, where we can find purpose, where we can find community, where we can find hope.

Column

Change

Character

Psychology

23 May 2024

4 min read

Look out for the outliers

Seeing the good qualities in others lifts them, benefits us, and makes the world better.

Roger Bretherton

Roger is a Clinical and Coaching Psychologist.

A office worker wearing headphones looks out of a hectic and loud office space around which people are moving

Nick Jones/Midjourney.ai

I was talking to someone the other day. She is a website developer and she’s just changed jobs. She is not a loud person, but anyone who meets her knows she is a person of quality, of depth and presence. She emanates a humble confidence. In her old job, she worked in a quiet, fairly sedate, office where she was given the space and the time to bring all her creativity to bear on whatever brief she was given. She was known and appreciated.

But her new job – the job she started last week – is a bit different. Her new colleagues are loud and outspoken. Silence is unknown in their office. They like to work to a soundtrack. The drum and bass keep thumping, and the banter never stops flowing. She’s finding it hard to fit in with her new team. And things weren’t made any easier when, after a few days, her new boss took her aside for a pep talk.

What was the problem? She was ‘too quiet’.

It hurt to hear that. It broke my heart to think that anyone could be so blind. How shortsighted do you have to be, to view the grace and peace someone carries as a problem to be solved? In a world of distressing noise and clamour, she is precisely the kind of person every office needs to temper the insanity.

I’m not worried about her. She’s bright and innovative. She’ll work it out. Either her new boss will see sense, or she’ll leave. And if she does, the queue of employers looking for someone just like her stretches round the block. She’ll be okay.

But it got me thinking about the kind of psychology I study. In my research, she would be called an outlier. One of those people in a team or a family who don’t quite fit in. Not because they are weird or awkward, but because they possess some positive quality the rest of the gang don’t have. They are the creative exuberant in a team who prefer doing things by the book. The hilarious joker in a pack who like to take things seriously. The conscientious worker trying to get on with the job in an office that would rather play now and work later. The kind one in a family of cutthroat competitors.

At the top of the list of reasons for wanting to leave work are the words: I am not appreciated.

The thing is we all have a unique contribution to make to the world, a one-off fingerprint of strengths and abilities never to be repeated in anyone else. In research these have been called Signature Strengths, the unique combination of positive qualities that make you you. And the weird thing is that we don’t have to try that hard to be them. If you are naturally kind, or wise, or grateful, or disciplined you won’t be able to stop yourself being that way. They come effortlessly to us. And if someone tries to stop us being the loving thoughtful faithful person we know ourselves to be, it is like losing a limb. If we find ourselves in a context where the most beautiful things about us are unwelcome – like my friend the website developer – it is like being rejected, right to the core.

But here’s the cool thing. If we can live by our Signature Strengths – if we can wake up each morning and ask the question, how can I use my unique positive qualities in a new way today? – it leads to remarkable improvements in wellbeing. Multiple studies have shown that those who live like this, thinking about how they can bring what is best in them to the opportunities and obstacles of each day, report increased happiness in living. Not only that, but they also show reduced anxiety, stress and depression. It turns out being good is good for us. Who knew.

That’s not the whole story though. To really be our best, we need other people to spot these strengths in us. If they don’t, we feel confined, unable to be ourselves in some way. When I ask people what it is like not to be able to bring their best qualities to the people around them, they come up with some pretty dark images. It is lonely, isolating, a desert, a fog, a prison, like being trapped in a cage. And when researchers ask people why they consider leaving their current job, their answers often reflect something like this. Work-life balance and salary are no doubt important, but often, at the top of the list of reasons for wanting to leave work are the words: I am not appreciated. Something good we wanted to give has not been received. We feel unseen.

So that’s why I say: look out for the outliers. Who is it in your family, your workplace, your neighbourhood, who goes underappreciated? Who do you know who has something good to give, but needs some help to give it? Because if we can learn to see those invisible beautiful qualities in the people around us, we not only give them the joy of being known, we also invite more light and flavour into the world. Life becomes a little less grey.

I just hope my friend’s new boss can learn this while he still has the chance. It is tough for her to feel so misunderstood, but it’s worse for him. She can move on, but he has to remain in an office deprived of the humble compassion she would have brought to it. It’s a question worth asking. What gift of beauty and goodness are we excluding from the world because we failed to see past the packaging?