AWRC Voices: The Doncaster muslim wellness conference – how our embedded researchers are making a difference in communities
Richard Gettings is an embedded researcher on our Doncaster Health Determinants Research Collaboration. He was recently part of a team that designed and organised the first Doncaster Muslim Wellness Conference. Richard has written for AWRC Voices about the circumstances that led to the development of the conference, some of the challenges faced, and its underpinning philosophies.
Around a year ago I had a pivotal conversation with Akeela Mohammed, Deputy Lieutenant of South Yorkshire and the Founder of the HealthyHer Doncaster Muslim ladies group. We spoke honestly and frankly about suicide, about our own lived experiences of the suicide rollercoaster and how we both wanted so much to empower the communities of Doncaster to become more aware and informed regarding this human condition that takes away all too often our loved ones, friends, colleagues and neighbours.
I already had seen, from my own journey, the prevalence of suicide within the bluelight and veteran communities of the UK and Akeela brought her insight into what was happening within the Muslim community also. Albeit culturally distinct from each other, we intrinsically knew that our respective communities shared so much with regards to trauma, suicide and mental health; and from this we knew we could collaborate and build something pioneering, authentic and so very necessary for the Doncaster Muslim community that would ultimately benefit all of Doncaster and beyond.
In these current times of division, polarisation and marginalisation, when politicians and the press often seek to emphasise our differences and pit us against one another we must strive to do the opposite and find commonality between our experiences of life, our challenges and our aspirations. Trauma, suicide and mental health are just these areas; albeit culturally distinct in certain respects, our respective journeys through trauma and upon the suicide rollercoaster are very similar, with similar red flag moments, similar crossroads moments and similar outcomes if unabated.
Shortly after this first conversation with Akeela, I was introduced to Imam Habeeb Minhas Madani and Shaykh Mohammad Ali, from both Doncaster Mosques. The four of us immediately shared the same passions, ambitions and dreams of what was so needed for the Doncaster Muslim community: a bespoke mental health event that catered for the community’s distinct needs, fears and lack of awareness around trauma, suicide and mental health, an event for the community by the community that they could invest in, trust in and be an active part of building and evolving going forward. The idea of a conference was born!
But so many hurdles, issues and problems loomed ahead of us on this journey. Funding, location, promotion, engagement, trust were some of many issues that we would have to confront head-on. Scepticism, negativity, lethargy and an intransigence to think differently and to do things differently were also amongst this cocktail of challenges that immediately leapt in front of us. This is, for me, the right time to introduce the relevance of my relatively new role, as an Embedded Researcher (ER) at the Doncaster Health Determinants Research Collaboration (HDRC).
Without the foresight and ambition of my two line managers, Susan Hampshaw at the HDRC and Cath Homer at the Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre (AWRC), I would certainly never have been given the opportunity to be within my new ER role, to be having the opportunity to chat with Akeela last year and subsequently collaborate and build with herself, Habeeb and Ali going forwards. The ER role, given the freedom and leeway to develop it to its fullest extent by Susan and Cath, was a springboard for pioneering collaborative community liaison on a level never perhaps before invested in.
My background wasn’t from academia, it was 22 years in policing and a personal journey of trauma, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), suicide attempts, living within a marginalised community and seeing from within how it really feels to be ignored, invisible and irrelevant. Once you experience this ostracisation from society, and all it’s systems of power and representation, you never forget it and become a champion of all communities that walk that walk, a protagonist and agitator for change, awareness and stigma smashing.
The following 12 months saw us build incredible relationships with phenomenal and consequential individuals and organisations, saw us build trust with the Muslim community, saw us obtain funding from incredibly supportive and collaborative Doncaster organisations and saw our dream develop from that first seed into the living, breathing and independent entity that it became on Saturday 23rd November at the Eco-Power Stadium in Doncaster. As I write this blog now, keen to seize the momentum and consolidate our progress to-date, I am still pinching myself with the significance of what has been achieved by good people getting together, across all communities, with the generous support of Doncaster institutions, organisations and individuals.
Yes, we have so much more now to work upon and to develop going forwards, many more challenges lay ahead certainly for us, but we have quietened the doubters and critics, we have built the foundations for an incredible framework that will drive necessary mental health, trauma and suicide awareness forwards and will, ultimately, become a cornerstone of best practice for community mental health support, awareness raising, stigma smashing and collaboration for all communities.
The important messages for myself from this past year, filled with challenges, difficulties and obstacles, is that progress does not happen without inspirational and courageous individuals stepping forward to drive it and without the most collegiate and collaborative organisations and individuals supporting them, working with them and also investing their trust, confidence and support in them.
We had these incredible elements thankfully; we had courageous Akeela, Habeeb and Ali, the cornerstones of our idea and aspirations, we had the generous and visionary funders at the City of Doncaster Council, Public Health Team, Rotherham Doncaster and South Humber NHS Foundation Trust and Sheffield Hallam University, Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre and we had the absolutely incredible combination of authentic, powerful and inspiring presenters who joined us, Mike McCarthy and the Baton of Hope, Toby Lewis, the CEO of RDaSH, Imam and Psychologist Alyas Karmani, Nadia Bashir, a Senior Research Fellow at Sheffield Hallam University, Glyn Butcher from the Doncaster People Focussed Group, Tim Godley and Fatimah Mahomed from the Doncaster Talking Therapies Team; all complimented by such a fantastic array of local and national organisations who set up stalls raising awareness of mental health, suicide and trauma. We had people and organisations travelling from as far afield as Liverpool and Bradford, very impressive when we take account of how bad the weather was that morning across the north of England.
I save a separate thank you to John Davis, CEO of the Club Doncaster Foundation, for the unwavering support he and the event team at the Eco-Power Stadium have given us from the very inception of this idea last year. The Foundation do so much fantastic community work across Doncaster and the football stadium at Doncaster is a true community hub where so much fantastic work goes on helping those who are marginalised and underserved. It was such an important step for Akeela, Habeeb, Ali, myself and the whole team to establish this event at the Eco-Power Stadium to showcase, champion and support this fantastic work and to embed this at the very heart of what we’re building.
This pioneering event took place because of courageous, inspiring people and organisations getting together for a common purpose. For me, in my relatively new role as an Embedded Researcher within the Doncaster Health Determinants Research Collaboration this incredible event typifies, showcases and champions the true potential and ability of the ER role within a well organised, ambitious and creative HDRC organisation. This, for me, is applied research at it’s most formative, ambitious and pioneering. What we have built here will, undoubtably, be the catalyst to much significant and consequential community, lived experience, research collaboration across Doncaster and regionally; ultimately benefitting all communities.
You can read more about the conference on BBC News