Signed, sealed, delivered and it’s a wrap!

On Tuesday 26^th November 2019, we completed the final session of our six-week chronic disease self-management course. This was our third and final workshop of the year. In April 2019, we held our first 6-week course, and this was followed by our second one in August 2019.

This final set of workshops began on 22^nd October with a class of 13, all female and whose ages ranged from 25 to 60.

We had a dynamic group of ladies who were keen to learn, very willing to participate and share their health stories and experiences and support each other; this created a great atmosphere for learning and built a strong sense of camaraderie.

Over the six weeks we covered a number of self-management techniques such as action-planning, physical activity, problem solving, decision making, healthy eating, medication management, communication skills and more.

Through group work, brainstorming sessions and homework, the course material came to life for participants and they were able to apply what was learnt each week to their own personal situation.

During our weekly feedback sessions, it was very rewarding to hear the impact the self-management techniques had made in just a short space of time and to hear of how each topic caused participants to reflect on their lifestyle and make a commitment to make healthier choices.

As usual, the section on food labels caused quite a stir when participants realized the quantities of sugar, salt and fat in many of the items they consume and this was a bit of a wake-up call with participants making small changes like switching to skimmed milk and reducing their portion sizes.

Once again, we found facilitating this course to have been a very rewarding experience and look forward to hosting more of these courses next year.

We’d like to say a big thank you to everyone who attended the course. We know it was a significant time commitment and we appreciate your dedication, time and your willingness to get involved.