Sinead Murphy on social prescribing: 'We offer community'

Sinead Murphy: I am a health and wellbeing community referral link worker - it is quite a mouthful! Picture Dan Linehan

There are lots of people who find themselves stuck, or rooted to the spot and unable for a variety of reasons to move on. They might find themselves not engaging with people, with hobbies, with interests, with education, with the community they live in, not exercising. Their world's have become small and insular difficult and lonely place to inhabit.

That's where Social Prescribing and the role of people like me come in. We work to bridge the gap, to connect the person to the community around them, to support them, to listen to them and to work in partnership with them to co-create a “social prescription”.

We look at the person in the context of their own life. It's the idea of dropping a pebble in the water and seeing how far the ripples will go. What we've found is that a lot of people are incredibly socially isolated.

I am a health and wellbeing community referral link worker - it is quite a mouthful! My catchment area is Ballyphehane and Togher and anywhere that touches that. Turners Cross, Glasheen, The Lough. But I wouldn't turn anyone away because of where they are. What we do is so timely in a way, with the pandemic, but its origins go way back to the mid 1980s. We want to meet people where they are at and endeavour to wrap the services around the person.

In some ways, the last twelve months have been amazing for us. Our role in essence is signposting, so when Covid hit, we were still working, but we moved from an engagement and a signposting role to service design, service delivery and emergency response. I'm based in Ballyphehane and Togher Community Development Project and we were part of Cork City Council's community response team. When we started working in the community we began doing things like collecting vulnerable, elderly or sick people's prescriptions or their pensions or doing the shopping. 

We call people to keep them connected and when it was possible, we did house calls to people's front doors.

Last summer, I had all of these referrals from GPs - individuals and groups - and I thought, what can I do for these people. I realised that we had nothing to offer except ourselves and our time, so I came up with a few initiatives and the first one was walking. I am part of a team in Cork and Kerry who are all based in different organisations but we are a really supportive and cohesive unit. We all decided that we'd do walking group leader training with Get Ireland Walking. After that, we all set up walking groups in our own areas. I set up Monday Strollers for people who wanted to talk and walk. Then I started walk and talk therapy and that worked really well for people who are very vulnerable and maybe are not ready to walk with the group yet. I am really into mindfulness and noticing the world around you and walking gets you out of the house and taking in the beauty of your surroundings. It's important to get people out of their heads and into their bodies and then into the world. I have them looking at trees and flowers - it's not for everyone but it really works.

When the second and third waves hit then we realised that we had to start to engage people online, so we started doing what we call a Health & Wellbeing Zoom Café. It's interesting, because it's a group of strangers, getting together on Wednesday mornings. We have such a diverse range of age groups and backgrounds and it is wonderful. We have a lady in a nursing home in the furthest tip of West Cork, people in Ballyphehane, Listowel, Adrigole. We get together every week and there is a lovely bit of chat.

We have great fun. Last week, one of our participants said “The rain is pouring outside and yet, I am here chatting to lots of people, without having to go outside my door. So l really appreciate the Zoom Café.” It took my breath away.

In this group, we have managed to create the sense of warmth that exists when you are in a room together and that's not an easy thing to do. There is a respect and a warmth and a trust between the group. People from all backgrounds and age groups are sharing experiences and it is very special.

We offer community. My older aunts and uncles tell me that the sense of community in Ireland is not the same as it used to be, but I say, 'it's still there, you just need to give everybody the opportunity.' Every day I see evidence of this. There is so much kindness and compassion and good nature in communities and it is there for everyone - we just need to give people different ways to engage with it.

• Social Prescribing Day takes place on March 18, offering an opportunity to change and create communities that offer support to the most vulnerable in society.