The Recovery Community and Me
My interest in Public Health began when my mum took a job as the Drug & Alcohol Programme Manager within the council of our local town, which is located in the North West of England. Even in my angsty teen years, I have always taken an interest in my mum’s work. Looking back, our discussions about her work are what first sparked my interest in health and wellbeing. My mum became involved with the opening of a community-based addiction recovery centre (the Together Centre). This centre aimed to create a community where individuals could access support and engage with others in recovery. My family and I would often participate in social events held at the centre. Through these events I built relationships with both workers and clients. I now realise that these relationships played a significant role in shaping my character. This is because they challenged any biases and stereotypes, I held about addiction and those who suffer from it. For example, I learnt that addiction didn’t always equate to a chaotic lifestyle and that many of the clients had jobs and seemingly normal lives.
When I turned eighteen, I took a volunteering job cooking the free weekly breakfast at the centre. In this role, I interacted with many clients who were experiencing poverty which was contributing to their substance abuse. I began to understand how the health of many clients was impacted by social determinants such as their socioeconomic position and where they lived. I also heard accounts of stigma service users had experienced when seeking healthcare. This challenged my naïve belief that having a national health service means that everyone in the U.K has an equal opportunity to access good quality healthcare. On reflection, my volunteering job encouraged me to think critically about how health is experienced by different groups within society.
In the final year of my degree in Social Anthropology, I decided to use the Together Centre as the focus for my dissertation. I wanted to explore how the COVID-19 pandemic had changed the way workers at the centre cared for their clients, so I conducted virtual interviews with workers and volunteers at the centre. Before I began my interviews, I had assumed that the primary concern amongst staff at the centre would be the physical health of clients due to fears that COVID-19 would spread faster amongst drug-using populations and have a more severe impact on those with compromised immune systems. However, my interviews revealed that although this was a concern, the majority of staff were equally worried about the impact that the pandemic was having on the social, spiritual, and emotional health of clients. Listening to these concerns caused me to rethink my personal view of what it means to be healthy.
Previously, I had held what is known as a negative view of health. This focuses on individuals’ physical health and the absence of disease. It is characterised by a top-down approach that implies that the use of preventative methods and input from health professionals are what enable people to maintain or restore their health. After reflecting on my interviews, my understanding of health changed to what is known as a positive view of health. This view sees physical health as just one component of health. It is characterised by bottom-up approaches which focus on individual and community participation and empowerment. Engaging with this holistic approach to health made me realise I wanted to pursue a career where I could help others lead healthy lives. Late one night, after a day of transcribing interviews, I began my MPH Public Health application.
