Blog | Middlesbrough Voluntary Development Agency

Back to the Future for social prescribing

21 March 2019 - 1:02pm

I feel a bit like Marty McFly having just stepped out of Doc's DeLorean and being transported back to 2014. Scotland voted to stay a member of the United Kingdom in an independent referendum, Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi won the Nobel Peace Prize, Friends celebrated its 20th anniversary making me feel very old, Conchita Wurst won Eurovision, Ed Sheeran and ‘thinking out loud’ makes number one twice and we were watching ‘The Theory of Everything’ and ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ at the cinema.

A tablet to mask the pain

11 March 2019 - 5:11pm

Prevention is the word on everyone's lips for health and wellbeing, yet why do my experiences suggest we still look to mask symptoms rather than cure them?

The current health and social care agenda has a focus on prevention, the Care Act 2014 stated that there will be ‘A greater emphasis on prevention ‘ - local authorities and providers of support would encourage and assist people to lead healthy lives, reducing the chances of them needing more support in the future’

Losing control

7 February 2019 - 3:56pm

So… this week I have spent two days in Birmingham being energised, inspired and challenged with bells on* by the people I met at Losing Control (a conference hosted by Practical Governance and the Social Change Agency).

Movement building (wearing L plates)

8 January 2019 - 2:27pm

If you’ve been on any leadership training in the last few years or love a good TED talk you may be aware of the following video:

‘Leadership is over-glorified… It was really the first follower that transformed the lone nut into a leader’

How can we reduce transport barriers for Middlesbrough residents?

20 November 2018 - 3:43pm

Transport means a lot of things to a lot of different people. But how much of an issue is it for some people? For me personally, it is quite a big component of my daily living and how I go about my life. I rely on public transport to get to work, to visit family and to do the activities I want to do. I regularly use buses or train services to get to where I need to be, luckily for me I do not have any barriers preventing me from using public transport so largely this isn’t a huge issue. It has its good days and it has its bad days.