Self-confessed musophile Miriam talks about music, snoring and all things peer working in the second episode of Peers in a Pod- the podcast all about Peer Support work. Who are we? what do we really DO ? how did we get here? In Season 1 Peer Trainer Fiona Eastmond interviews peer workers from across the NHS to find out what makes them tick. Monthly releases.
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Twitter (@FionaThePSW)
Self-confessed musophile Miriam talks about music, snoring and all things peer working in the second episode of Peers in a Pod- the podcast all about Peer Support work. Who are we? what do we really DO ? how did we get here? In Season 1 Peer Trainer Fiona Eastmond interviews peer workers from across the NHS to find out what makes them tick. Monthly releases.
Patreon (donate £1 a month)
Ko-Fi (donate any one-off amount)
Twitter (@PeersinaPod)
Twitter (@FionaThePSW)
hi, my name is Fiona Eastmond and this is peers in a pod. about peer support working who are we? What do we do most importantly, what are our favorite biscuits? Is the very first recording. If you'd just like to introduce yourself,
Miriam:Hi, Fiona. I'm Miriam and I'm course administrator and peer trainer and tech support and moderator at the CNWL recovery and wellbeing college.
Fiona:Fantastic. Is there anything you don't do?
Miriam:I'm very good at lateral thinking.
Fiona:I think you are actually, I think you really are I've got these lovely questions here that I'm going to ask everybody and they're sat here balance next to my Tippex. So question one, what is peer support?
Miriam:Peer support is, having somebody who has been through similar experiences to yourself. And who if they're speaking to you about things, whether things that help them or anything like that, you know that you're not alone. And you're speaking to somebody to whom you don't have to explain a whole lot. And who is also there to try and help you with things that may have helped them or which other people who are also involved in peer support have found helpful.
Fiona:Yeah, so it's really, it's people supporting people. Isn't it?
Miriam:Yes, that's right. Because of the stigma associated with having experienced mental health difficulties it can be it's sometimes particularly difficult to explain yourself and other people who have been there have a kind of an unspoken understanding about. How you might be feeling and also about the way that you might look at how things, what things can help you.
Fiona:Fantastic. I love the idea of unspoken understanding. I think that's really key to peer support which kind of brings me nicely to the language around peer support. And we seem to have. Come across quite a lot. The word recovery with a capital R which brings me on to my second question. What is Recovery anyway?
Miriam:Recovery. Somebody if they're a clinical practitioner understands by recovery, is that your mood has stabilized or something so that it was okay for you to be discharged from hospital or that you were sustaining that in the community. And then you might be discharged from services. But personal recovery is whether you're living the life that you want to lead going forwards. It's it would be recognizing that things happen to you in the past, but because sometimes the R E at the front of recovery, it suggests that you're going backwards and that you're trying to attain some state. Prior, which in fact, you're not you're saying, given that this has happened, how can I lead my best life going forward? Given what I want to do, things that I want to do in my life.
Fiona:Yeah. And to lead your own life as well. That's what I've always thought of as a recovery with a capital R it's really quite person centered. If that's not too jargonistic to say.
Miriam:Yes, it is. It will be different for different people, depending on all sorts of things to do with their culture or the things that interested them and their background and things like that. It's a unique thing to each individual, what they would consider that was the life they wanted to lead.
Fiona:So from your recovery, what is your most often used recovery tool?
Miriam:I think empathy I've quite often been to outreach things to other services. And also when I have done work on wards, helping with our snapshots and things I know that from my accent, I start speaking people immediately have ideas about the kind of person that I am and I have quite often felt a really visible change in the room. If I start saying, that I have had experience of being on an inpatient ward myself we were doing a workshop about sleep. And there was a bit where we were talking about quiet on the, peaceful environment in the room. I just said, if you'd been on the ward with me, you would have had difficulty because I, snore. There was this immediate thing. Oh, And as I was leaving afterwards, some of the people who'd been on previous snapshots, but weren't in that one word got around, came up to me and said, have you been on an inpatient ward? So yes I have. And then we had a bit of a fist bump and went on our way. And so that's what the entire I've been at other things where you've just the way that people listen to you is different. If they think you're not necessarily talking at them, but you're talking with them. That is what the most, that's the sort of difference that it can make because they would immediately have a view about the kind of person I was initially until we get to that point.
Fiona:And it's quite subtle as well. From what you're saying, you don't have to stand up in front of a room and say, my name is, and I've been doing this and I did this and this is my history. This is my recovery CV. To include it in conversation to include it in the middle of what you're doing as something that's just totally normal, something you did, something that happened to you somewhere where you've been just really subtly signals. Think I'm one of you, not one of them. That signal can be, so it can immediately drop so many barriers. I think.
Miriam:Yes. And also it's making it that, lots of people have mental health challenges. And you're just saying it as part of the conversation, rather than as your kind of whole narrative or identity from the outside. It's just I'm just one of many people and this is. This has been my experience. So it's normalizing what is actually the experience of many people, but about which many people are reticent or hold back because of stigma, including self stigma.
Fiona:Yeah, definitely. So what do you use in your own recovery? What was the most useful thing that you still use or maybe used for ages to get you through the day?
Miriam:I am, as many of my friends can testify a complete muso bore music was very helpful to me. Both playing it and listening to it. But what I'm one thing that helped me a lot or was really critical was that I had I had a network of friends. I hadn't seen for quite a long time for various reasons before I became ill and. I contacted them. When I, after I was discharged, when I was living in bed and breakfast, accommodation, then a very long way from where I lived.
Fiona:Okay.
Miriam:they had, even though I hadn't seen them for a long time all came out to see me. And they never ever held any of the things that I said, had happened to me against me. And I think that was really critical. I always think that being able to help somebody, if they don't have a network to build one up is really critical. And sometimes a longer-term challenge to achieve. That's why I think the sort of online support communities and other support communities that are around in the voluntary sector are really critical for that also, because in fact, I experienced same thing that I experienced at work that I would say once people heard what happened to me, they would say, Oh, that happened to me too. And, even amongst my network of friends, it became something we could be more open about amongst ourselves.
Fiona:Yeah, there's something about that human connection. Isn't there not put it too simplistically, but our friendship networks or our lives really many people call them our chosen families. Don't they?
Miriam:Yes. Exactly. People who you've shared different experiences with at different times of your life. And, so that's again, it's because you don't have to explain very much if there are people who've known you for a long time about yourself, you don't have to restart. You've got an established contact that you've chosen and you have chosen each other both of you.
Fiona:How did you get into your current role you've already said what your current role is. But How did you get into your current role
Miriam:well, I had been working for a couple of years as a support worker with personal budget holders and also in, hostels. And so the, and I had been applying for. Positions during that time. And I got a job at CNWL where I was partly working with learning and development team and partly working with the recovery college up at our recovery and training center in Harrow. And then an opportunity came up about I think about a year after that, to move full-time into working with the recovery college. So that's how I came to be there helping with the course. Administration. And then I also started being a peer trainer in some of our workshops. So that's how that all originated.
Fiona:So slowly, really it, erm organically became a thing. It's funny how our roles seem to be made for us, but what's actually happened is we've slowly made the roles. Into us,
Miriam:yes. Yes. And looked at things where because in the recovery wellbeing college, many of the things that in other environments might be seen as weaknesses are seen as strengths. That's an important thing.
Fiona:a very special place to work. Yeah. I couldn't agree with you more so here comes challenging question number five. Describe your typical working day using only five words.
Miriam:Wake
log
Miriam:Communicate eat. And then probably relaxation after that makes us
sound like I don't do anything in the 8 hours
Miriam:in between.
Fiona:No, makes you sound like
a human being I like that.
Fiona:But, also that's actually and I suppose deliberately this question really oversimplifies the utter complexity of a peer sort of Workday. I mean my work day at the moment is zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom
Miriam:Yes. Yes. Even in the zoom environment and online environment. I don't have any
two days which are the same because
Miriam:of the different things that I do in my role. So if things
come up to do with course
Miriam:admin or responding to email and telephone inquiries and things, there's a lot of variety, even if it sounds as if I just spend all day in front of a screen.
it sounds to
Fiona:me like there is no such thing as a typical working day. Yeah, so here's your opportunity to tell one amazing story and I know you and you might have three that's. Okay. You can always tell all of them and we'll pick one.
Miriam:was most proud of when we have people who are referred to us or come along to us and they're often very nervous. And because I've been there myself I remember when I used to work at Harrow, seeing some people coming in sometimes with a key worker, the first time to have a look at the building, yes, this is where the refreshments are and things, and they would be shuffling along several steps behind. And I would think is that person actually going to turn up on the day? If they haven't got somebody with them and then they would turn up and then you'd see them going there and then realizing that it was a kind of space for them and how they became more confident and
were
Miriam:striding along you could see their whole, everything about them, including, how confidently they walked around moving because they were not alone in that space. And then also they would be encouraging others because of what happened to them about coming along and joining all groups of different people, sharing their experiences. I think that's, that just in general, it was a very, the first time I ever had to process the evaluations we had at the end of our courses, where we would ask, what three things have you learned today? And there was a
workshop, about hearing
Miriam:voices and first
form I got, the first
Miriam:thing it said, I'm
not alone. I thought amazing.
Miriam:So I sent that up as a feedback to the recovery college manager, before I realized that was
actually a Coals to Newcastle
Miriam:because that happened on every single course. Yeah. The social isolation that many people feel is a big thing that we helped to break down also. I was just really that was a big story about
why I
Miriam:really working here also.
Fiona:Yeah, fantastic. It's good to treasure those proud moments for times when it gets a bit more difficult. And I certainly know from working in recovery college, that one of the things we do really well is reduce isolation and help people feel that they're not alone, help people know that they're not alone. This is not a sort of fluffy feeling
that we impart this is
Fiona:the actual truth because we're not we're not alone. And it's lovely to hear that coming back from people and we've been doing it for
ages. Yes. I love that we've
Fiona:been around for nearly 10 years.
Yes. It's
Fiona:Yeah. Even as a relatively new recruit, I feel like a history of breaking down stigma and improving isolation and helping people to feel they're not alone for 10 years. That's got to be something that we're all very proud of being involved in. Yeah.
Miriam:Yes. And also promoting a sort of
recovery focused things. So
Miriam:in that, that comes down to even two things. I come, answering emails, because for example, we might have general emails with course information and things, but then if someone has mentioned something in the email, you're responding to that, you pick up that you read that and you might then respond accordingly so that we have some generic emails we'd send out, but we would be Quite centered on what we think that person who emailed us might be feeling at the time in the way that we responded. And always carrying the idea of hope. On that subject, I was at a workshop where we were talking about as we do at the beginning about our core values and what hope is, and one of the students said hope is that I have an exercise class at 10 30 tomorrow morning. And that was just amazing to me because so many people overstate what hope is, and it's not this enormous kind of thing where I suddenly went through something it's that there's a structure emerging in my life that in order to get to this exercise class, I have to go to bed at certain time. I have to put these certain things in place in order to be there. And also other people are expecting me there. So I'm actually connected with. Various reciprocal social things and just, it was just a really small step. It's the it's the verse from Leonard Cohen's hallelujah about it's not a cry you hear at night. It's not somebody who's seen the light, it's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah. And that even might be how it feels, but it is a hallelujah. Nonetheless.
Fiona:Yes
Miriam:yeah.
Fiona:love Leonard Cohen so much. It seems to me like in your five word definition of your day, it could say get up, consider everybody. Go to sleep. It's, that's so considerate and empathetic and caring even just about the way that you answer an email that makes you the person who you are. I think knowing your emails and having seen your emails.
Well, its very kind of you to say so, but
Miriam:I yeah, no, it's really important to me that people find us a kind of welcoming place and that even if it's very busy, we try and keep that going. Were saying to people be compassionate to yourself, but we also are being compassionate to them while also emphasizing that we are compassionate to ourselves.
Fiona:It's true. It goes around and around. Doesn't it. We fill ourselves up with compassion and it overflows to others. At least that's what we hope it does.
Miriam:But it's difficult to show that kind of compassion to other people. If you don't have it for yourself.
Fiona:that's very
Miriam:It's the, if I'm not for myself then who is for me, if I'm not for others, that who am I, if not now, when
which is Rabbi Hillel's golden rule,
Fiona:Yes. It's a golden rule that I really love. I actually took that from
you. Didn't I. I asked
Fiona:the team for some quotes to put into some of our courses. And that was the one that you gave and it was excellent. That was one of my favorites. So as a
self-confessed Muso-bore and I promise I shan't be bored.
Fiona:Question seven is what's your favorite listening when you need a boost? Now I'm not asking obviously for
just one tune because that
Fiona:would be silly. Give us a general idea and maybe your top track at the moment. And we can put it on to the recovery college, Spotify playlist.
Miriam:Strangely sometimes I like very upbeat songs if I need a boost, but sometimes I actually like songs which are quite sad because I feel like an empathy with the person who wrote it about what they go. And sometimes I feel like, Oh, that kind of contracted my own gloom. And I came out of it. It's my favorite. I like a lot of music that
involves vocal
Miriam:harmonies, including things like unaccompanied vocal harmonies, because I like the voice as an instrument. And I am also an absolute sucker for a
good brass section.
Miriam:I think that's a genre of instruments that I
have never mastered.
Miriam:I have very random playlist. I think I
often baffle the Spotify algorithms. Oh, yes.
Fiona:A Spotify algorithm is not a person. This is one of the problems where we come to feel that we're choosing things. Whereas in fact, and we're choices and quite heavily guided by well algorithms. It's more complicated than I can get my head around
Miriam:Yes. And it's sometimes because I know that they direct you in a certain direction. It could be difficult if you're trying to change that direction as well.
Fiona:What if you like your selection of things and it goes on, you might like stuff that's exactly the same as you had before. No, I'm looking for something new Mr. Algorithm.
Miriam:Have one tune, which is, was actually very memorable to me as something that was chosen. I was redeployed to work on a ward in March for three months, and I was amazed. I just started up a sort of desert Island discs thing that ended up happening every other day, where we would just go around the room and you could choose a song and you could you could say why you chosen it if you wanted to, but you didn't have to. And I was just, it was really great because people just come in and then they would have chats that were completely outside. What everything else going on the ward. And we ended up there were, so I got some really amazingly knowledgeable people talking about their particular types of music that they liked. And also what I liked was when people would. If somebody went out, cause they had to go for a break for whatever reason, they'd say, Oh, could you stop? Wait, the next song until I come back. And it wasn't their own tune or somebody else's choice. And I found that really amazing. And also that in very difficult times, it was very difficult
no visitors allowed
Miriam:no going outside. But they were very uptempo on lots of days. And the one song I choose from that is. Reasons to be cheerful, part
three by Ian Dury and the Blockheads.
Miriam:And that, that isn't only because I'm a former punk rocker myself, as I keep telling you that it's not actually a punk song, but it was in that era, but yes,
Fiona:yes, it was on the edges it's so uplifting and wonderful. So we've come to the last question, which is obviously the most important question and it is what is your favorite biscuit,
Miriam:Like a baked biscuit or a bought biscuit?
Fiona:How about both? How about both? You can never have too many biscuits. Right?
Miriam:True. True. I
think thebought biscuit,
Miriam:it would be a milk chocolate hobnob baked biscuit. It would be various types of macaroon. Just because I like them when they're really squishy on the inside. They may technically count as a cake in the way that the Jaffa cake
did, but to
Fiona:Is it almonds that they're
Miriam:Yes, yes, yes. Almonds and egg, whites and sugar. Yes.
Fiona:Sounds flipping delicious.
Thank you. Well those are going straight
Fiona:on my shopping list. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for
Miriam:No, thank
Fiona:yourself and what peer support really is and what it's like,
Miriam:Thank you for your enthusiasm about setting these up.
Fiona:specialize in enthusiasm and I particularly enjoy buying shiny things. So I bought myself a Mike and started to do the research, realized it was an absolutely massive job and just thought, yep, I'm going to do it anyway. Here we
Miriam:Yes.
Fiona:We've started. What can I say? I can see a series coming up
called Miriam the Muso
Fiona:with all of your favorite tunes
Miriam:oh, I should show my age
and say,
Fiona:that there is it's
Miriam's mix tape. That's
Fiona:your
series. It's Miriam's mix tape
Fiona:and Oh, it just cannot wait to hear it. Don't forget to follow me on at Fiona The P S W on Twitter. Upcoming episodes include all sorts of very interesting people. And i very much look forward to Having you as my listener again Thank you