Creative English for Health: Why does it work?
In the third of our series of blogs on Creative English for Health, we explore one of the reasons for its success.
As with all Creative English programmes, Creative English for Health is a range of holistic programmes which build confidence, language skills, health literacy, friendships and peer support simultaneously, as complex challenges need multi-layered solutions.
With increased health literacy, we’ve found that people often choose to make lifestyle changes that improve their outcomes. In our recent Barking and Dagenham programme, tailored to address common health issues in the borough, we found that as well as improving their confidence speaking English, 89% of those who completed the programme made lifestyle changes as a result. But having the information doesn’t necessarily result in behaviour change, so how does this work in Creative English for Health and how is our approach different?
Some of our volunteer facilitators and course participants explain how the programme supports knowledge becoming action:
I knew but I didn’t know, if you know what I mean. I knew that we should be healthy and exercise and stuff, but it wasn’t until we did that exercise when we were all the heart and it stopped that I thought “Wow! I have to do something about it!” There’s something that really brings it home when you see it like that. It hits you in the gut and once you’ve seen it you have to change. I think it’s going through that process with other people that helps too – if you’re going to make some changes, we encourage one another – it’s not so scary as doing it on your own.
The health literacy games are really key, I think. They are really hard-hitting. But it could feel overwhelming, but it doesn’t because people are laughing and enjoying it. The health messages, I suppose, are mixed in with other things, I suppose, so it’s not so intense and you don’t have to agree with it all before you start. It drip feeds it in and helps people make their own choices about what applies to them. It’s much more powerful when you apply it to yourself and make a choice, rather than someone just telling you what to do. And the group, of course, the fact everyone’s on a similar journey – that helps too.
My sister did one of these healthy lifestyle courses but she’d just come back every week depressed, deny everyone in the family any treats and then forget about it a few weeks later. It seemed everything was bad and that there was too much to change, so she ended up not changing anything long term. What I like about this approach is that there’s lots of space for people to apply what’s relevant to their lives for themselves – which is usually starting with the small changes that stand out to them as most important and then once you try something and start doing it and it works and then you hear one of your friends in the group talking about too and so you try that and slowly it’s building to a significant amount of change, but without being judged or lectured – no one sticks with stuff they feel bad about.
What’s clever is how you don’t ever make it feel personal. We did a session about BMI and the women in the group were all overweight. I couldn’t imagine doing it before really. But the session plan got people to draw a character and give them a height etc, so you could use the NHS calculator to work out the BMI and after the session the ladies were all coming up to me and saying quietly, “I was curious, so I did it for me to see what my BMI was and I’m overweight, so I need to think what I do about that like the story. That’s the bit Creative English is good at – not making it personal, so you can choose to engage with it without the pressure and without feeling condemned.
How can you get involved?
Do you work for a health team where you feel Creative English for Health could improve health outcomes for people you work with?
Are you part of a faith group who would like to get involved in delivering this work and have contacts in Public Health you could put us in touch with to explore the possibility of a funded programme in your area?
Are you interested in running the programme as a licence holder?
