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Reading for Wellbeing is a course specifically designed to support workers who are delivering a fantastic project, founded by Ann Cleeves, across 10 local authorities in the North East of England.
The project uses the joy and solace that reading can offer to reach out to individuals and groups who are grieving, lonely, ill or in distress.
The course offers learners preparation and early support for that difficult job in the form of practical tools, book knowledge and reader-centred practice to boost confidence.
The first tranche of learners embarked on this training opportunity in 2021/22 and gave useful feedback so that the course could be improved. The update went live in February 2024 and at present, there are six new teams of Reading for Wellbeing workers taking this new-look version across the North East. Already, there are some wonderfully creative outcomes from their engagement in the training.
The three members of staff from Newcastle are the first full Reading for Wellbeing team in this second tranche to complete the course and, as such, we would like to shine a spotlight on their achievement.
Fiona Edwards has mentored the Newcastle team through the course and has been very impressed with their openness, their creative thinking and their dedication to filling gaps in their skills before they started work.
They come to the project from different backgrounds and bring different skills and experience, which gives them a powerful starting point.
All the team are very empathetic and aware of how difficult, but how rewarding, introducing reading into different lives can be. The team used the practical tasks very creatively and are highly focused on the individuals with whom they will be working. They have proved to be committed learners, going the extra mile every time to make the most of the preparation that the training course offered.
If you would like to learn more about this developing project, and in particular the audiobook walking group called Steps and Stories that the group has started, get in touch by email readingforwellbeing@newcastle.gov.uk
So we would like to celebrate:
Helen is an occupational therapist, and so understands very well how to engage with individuals and has also had personal experience of the ebb and flow of a reading life. Her work on the course was perceptive and thoughtful. Helen has skill and understanding in how to engage in an open and direct way with people. She took the opportunity to use the course to widen her book knowledge and create a highly focused collection for an interesting and diverse group of people who would really benefit from her input.
This is what Helen said about building her capsule book collection in Task 2:
“For the task I imagined that I was going along to a local charity that supports people [of all ages] who care for family members/others with a wide range of physical and mental health issues or other difficulties. I challenged myself to reflect on how informal carers exist in all sections of society so while they share common experience, their interests and reference points would be equally diverse, and they will have a range of reasons why they may want to read – to explore, escape, laugh and learn.”
Charlotte has a real passion for reading and used the course work to gain practice to use her enthusiasm to open up people’s reading experiences. Charlotte’s experience in education as a teacher has made her a methodical planner and a perceptive thinker and she used the training tasks to start talking to people about their reading life to powerful effect.
Charlotte says:
“Not coming from a library background it was very useful and good to feel supported and get feedback that I was on the right track. I enjoyed the activities especially using book covers as an ice-breaker and a way in to talk about books. After doing an activity such as 'Love it, loathe it' and chatting about it, I feel quite confident about getting a range of books that a reader could choose from. I'd definitely need to do some research myself for certain groups such as teens and for male readers and keep up to date with other non-book resources and alternative formats.”
With a background in Adult Social Care, Chris is perceptive in his approach. He focused his attention on the needs of the people he wants to work with, and so the resources he put together are purposeful and creative. His work on the course was meticulous and responsive and he worked hard on creating a portfolio of work that will act as a useful foundation for his role.
Chris says: “I found the discussion around genres and types of books helpful. The sections about what judgements you can make from the book cover and how this might relate to individuals and groups was interesting. I am definitely more confident now and have begun the process of increasing my book knowledge. “
If you are not part of the North East Reading for Wellbeing project and are interested in this course for your own training needs, please do get in touch at fiona@openingthebook.com
