Latest / SoWhoCaresAnyway / SoWhoCaresAnyway E5 Heratige and Health?

Transcript

SoWhoCaresAnyway E5 Heratige and Health? · SoWhoCaresAnyway

0:01
Hello, and welcome to So Who Cares Anyway? The podcast that shares learning, innovation, and ideas from the world of health and social care and beyond.
0:13
My name is Ruth Germain, and I'm inviting you to join me each week with my inspirational guests to hear about who cares, what they do, Their passions, their knowledge and ideas, and importantly, the difference they are making to improve the health and well being of people in our communities.
I consider each of my guests to be incredible individuals working with people in new ways or with key messages to share.
0:39
People from healthcare, social care, the voluntary sector, community groups and more.
0:46
To join me each week to find out, so who cares.
0:50
Anyway, to find out more about me, who I am and what I do, please head over to my website, www.reflectiveruthconsultancy.com,
1:04
where you can also catch up with previous episodes and read my blogs.
1:08
Hello, and welcome to the next episode of So Who Cares Anyway? And in this episode, I'm delighted to welcome Phil Ward.
1:16
I linked up first of all, with Phil back in 2019, or 2020, I think it was, I just finished my Darzi programme.
And I'd been interested in some of the work that Phil was doing with the Eastern Arc, so that's an applied research collaborative.
And whilst the, collaborative was particularly looking at things, and I'll let Phil expand later because I know it's more than this, but around heritage and culture.
What I realized from some of that work was that there was quite a bit about linking in with the community and thinking about health and care and that broad sense, but from a very much a community aspect, I went along to a conference last year.
So when I started in this role, I started to think about podcasts and things.
I went to Phil's conference that they'd run and.
I was really struck again about how much was happening to make a difference to the lives of the people in our communities.
And this really linked in with the episode a few weeks ago with Adam Lent, which was about community and working with people rather than doing things to people.
And so I really wanted to start to explore this further.
So I'm absolutely delighted to have Phil on the call today.
So I'm going to ask Phil to introduce him a little bit further and then we can start to talk about some of the things that are happening and the difference that the Eastern Ark is making to their communities.
So hi Phil.
Hi Ruth and thanks for having me on your podcast.
It's a pleasure.
So I'm Phil Ward.
I'm director of Eastern Arc, which as Ruth alluded to,, it's a consortium that brings together four regional, research intensive universities.
The University of East Anglia, the University of Essex.
the University of Kent and the University of Sussex.
So, as you can probably tell from that list, we're all in the greater southeast of England, which is a really interesting region in terms of being, broadly a region of prosperity, certainly in the national narrative, but with significant, and real need a significant socioeconomic deprivation, particularly along our coasts.
And the purpose of the consortium is to collaborate, to work together, to work together with our universities, but to work together with our communities and with our regional stakeholders, whether that be people within our communities or whether that be, NHS trusts, integrated care boards,, charities.
galleries, museums, any number of different organizations with whom we can work and with whom we can,, collaborate to be more than the sum of our parts, essentially.
I'll talk a little bit more about Eastern Art perhaps as the podcast goes on.
But that's it in a nutshell, those four universities within.
this particular region.
Thank you, Phil.
That's a really good brief to start with.
So I wonder if you might go straight into that little bit of understanding that little bit more.
And there's a number of groups that you have going already going.
I belong to a couple of them myself.
So I wonder if you want to talk about those a little bit further and get a little bit more of a.
context to people.
Yeah, absolutely.
So Eton Arc's been around for about 10 years, and I took over in 2019.
And certainly when I took over, I wanted to explore ways in which we can collaborate, in which we can facilitate those conversations, find ways in which we can create those.
those forums in which people from very different areas, very different backgrounds can have those conversations and find those natural links.
And over the time I've been doing it since 2019, a number of areas have emerged quite naturally.
And those areas are focused on identifiers, perhaps, for our region, are things which are perhaps unique for our region, which are unique for our region, but which have both national, international, and global importance.
So the four areas Eastern Arc is focusing on around collaboration are coast, food, heritage, and sanctuary.
And I'll talk about each of those a little bit just to explain how.
Those have been arrived at.
So the Eastern Arc area stretches from Norfolk down to Sussex in, the south.
So we've got a thousand miles of coast from the Wash down to Sussex Bay, and within that there's huge opportunity, and that might be around,, offshore wind, for instance, or the cultural and creative industries, which are often co located along the coast, but there's significant need.
in that area as well, and that might be natural, environmental in terms of flooding and coastal erosion, the challenges of climate change, but it might be socio economic as well.
I've alluded to that right at the beginning, where some of the Communities with the most significant socioeconomic deprivation along our coast, whether that be Great Yarmouth, Bacton, Thanet, Dover, Hastings, Eastbourne, all of them share a certain amount of commonality, in the challenges they face.,
so Coast are the first of those areas, and one of the.
Networks, which we've started to develop is the coastal data network, the CODA network, which you've joined Ruth, and the idea of that is to start to address.
Some of the challenges that Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer, identified in his 2021 report where he said, coastal health data needs addressing, it's not as good as it should be, and coastal universities should work with local authorities, with NHS trusts and others to address some of those, and that's why we've brought together the CODA network to start to address those.
So COAST is very central to what we do.
The second is around food.
We're a region of food production, the Garden of England, the Breadbasket of England.
Clichés, but they're based on, real truth.
A third of income from farming comes from our region.
Two thirds of food imports come through our region and there's an awful lot of research going on around nutrition and diet as well in the Norwich Research Park, for instance, with the John Innes, the Quadram.
So there's a real critical mass around, the importance of the food, sector.
But also the food research going on, and if we can connect up, and start to address some of those challenges, whether it be the societal ones, the use of food banks, the, the ability to access food, the ability to access good food, in times of, a cost of living crisis, I think that's crucial.
The third is around heritage and, The thinking behind this is that our region historically has been shaped by the movements, by the tides of history, whether that be defense, invasion, pilgrimage, leisure, and a range of Events, historic events have affected us particularly, at the forefront of the UK in terms of engaging with the rest of the world.
So we have more heritage assets in our part of the world than anywhere else.
And if we could use those perhaps to address some of the issues, facing our region, the socioeconomic deprivation, the leverage we can, get from those.
cultural assets, then we can use them to, address some of those.
And the final one is around sanctuary that, the heritage piece, we are shaped by movement, by migration.
And three of our Eastern Arc universities are universities of sanctuary already.
And the University of Kent is applying to be one and has already identified it as an area that they want to focus on.
So if link up those universities, if we can almost develop an arc of sanctuary, if we can work with those affected by issues of migration and sanctuary, then it benefits us all.
And that's something to take from it, is working together for the benefit of all,, essentially.
Those four areas are areas of focus for us, but I don't want them to be restrict if I want us to be able to open up and see.
ways in which we can work together.
So for instance, I've had two different, groups of people come to me and say, it would be great to develop a network around social justice that each of our universities does research on social justice that it's one of the founding principles of the kind of universities, the 60s universities we are, the radical interdisciplinary universities we are.
And social justice is an area we should focus on.
Once again, going back to those ideas of working with our community and being of benefit to our community.
So that's really.
Where I see Eastern Art focusing going forward, those four areas, but broadening out and being open and, inclusive to different ways of thinking.
Thank you, Phil.
And you summarised those really well.
And every time I hear you, I've heard you speak about these a couple of times, both to me individually, but also at the conference and other things as well.
Each time it fascinates me that actually when I think about these things, they are all things that we think about in healthcare.
And as I alluded to at the beginning, a lot of people, when you think about care, you think about doctors, nurses, health, but actually there's so much more that's.
That's woven through.
So there's been a lot of things within the NHS about our coastal communities and recognizing those issues and certainly around food.
But I'm going to come on to that heritage one, because I think it's something that I thought about a bit less.
And when I came to the conference, some of the stories around the heritage were fascinating..
And there was a gentleman there and I haven't looked it up and I perhaps I should have done before I came on the podcast, but he was talking about, the circus that there had been, I think it was in Great Yarmouth, if I remember correctly, but actually, when they went there to look at that and think about that heritage, what that gave them as a real insight into the history.
of the people behind that.
And he was talking about the traveler community and some of the other communities that had perhaps, been involved in that.
So the migration to,, England, perhaps from Ireland or other areas as well.
But by understanding that, we could also have a better understanding of the different communities.
people were and why people live and do things in the way they do.
So I think gave a much better context through that heritage as to our communities and, understanding the complexities and the differences, but also the similarities.
So I really liked that bit that came through.
So I wonder if, I don't know that I'm articulating it very well, so I'm going to stop talking and ask you if you want to expand on that a little bit more, or if you've got any thoughts about that.
Absolutely.
So, you've explained it very well, Ruth, it was a fascinating conference, for those of you who weren't able, to come along to it.
This was held at UEA, the University of East Anglia in Norwich.
So each year we have a conference and each year we focus on one of those areas that I've already spoken about.
So in 2022, we were looking at the coast, 2023, And in 2024, we were looking at heritage and the idea was the conferences around harnessing heritage.
So as I spoke about before, thinking about how we can engage in a different way with heritage, how heritage is relevant to us all and how we can use heritage for the health and well being of our communities, And the session that I think Ruth was talking about was the idea of rethinking the heritage of coastal destinations.
And we heard from a number of people in that session.
So there was a guy called Ed Roberts from the University of Kent who was working with the Port of Dover.
authority to explore how their heritage assets, as you can imagine, the port of Dover has significant buildings and infrastructure in Dover.
It owns a lot of the Dover seafront, but a lot of the buildings are historic, dilapidated, perhaps, and he was invited by the Port of Dover Authority to audit what those, assets were and think about how they could be reused or repurposed, to support the community.
I think, the person who was talking about the Great Yarmouth, circus heritage, was Malcolm McLaughlin or Thomas Smith from UEA.,
they've both been working on different elements of Great Yarmouth's history.
One was, looking at The fact that the author of Black Beauty came from Great Yarmouth and so is looking at the history of her life, and her links to the town.
The other one, as Ruth alluded to, was, looking at circus, circus skills.
The idea of migrant communities coming to Great Yarmouth and really enhancing the culture and the experience of people there.
So Great Yarmouth is home to the Hippodrome, which I think is either the oldest or even the last surviving, permanent circus within a building.
And I went along there a couple of summers ago and it is an amazing experience.
It is, it feels in some ways like you're going back a hundred years.
But in other ways, it feels.
completely contemporary, and it doesn't feel like a historic artifact.
It feels like the people who were there, and it was packed out the night that we went along, were completely engaged with it and loving it.
So that history, that history of migration, of difference, of different cultures coming to somewhere like Great Yarmouth, that in some ways feels cut off, perhaps, from the tides of contemporary society.
Not to sound too grand about it, but in other ways are completely contemporary and are as cosmopolitan as anywhere else, and that was a really interesting way of looking at things.
And I love these conferences because they do force you to think differently about things, which goes to the heart of what we're trying to do with Eastern Ark is think differently about things and connect up people who might not necessarily meet each other in the everyday run of things.
So.
colleagues, like you, Ruth, whose background is very much in health and well being, meeting up with historians, with heritage experts, across the region and beyond.
At that conference we had people from the National Trust, we had people from the Church of England, we had, people from the University of Bournemouth, talking about having, coastal heritage as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it was a really interesting and provocative mix of people.
And that's certainly what I want to encourage with Eastern Arc, is to keep those conversations, encourage those conversations, kindle those.
sparks of interest between very different sectors to find ways in which we can work together for the benefit, of yes, our universities, but for the benefit of our communities in our region more broadly.
And that's a really nice thing, because what you're talking about I think that actually brings to life that universities aren't just somewhere that people go to study.
Actually, they're really important, institutions or whatever we want to call them within our society, that this research, this history and everything that comes from them, it's about trying to bring that to life.
And that's what I admired so much.
Bring that to life and make things happen with the knowledge that you have.
So that it becomes useful and it changes people's lives and it makes that difference.
the one of the other things that I remember there as well, that as somebody speaking was, there was quite a bit of talk around people doing community walks with people.
So they would actually walk around these heritage sites.
And I've come on to other events since where people have talked about using that heritage.
So I wonder if you've got anything that you might be able to share with me or to give people the idea of the type of impact doesn't particularly have to be heritage, but the type of impact this work is happening so that.
People can start to think about what that means.
There's many examples I can think of.
I think, the session you were, you were thinking about at the conference was once again really inspiring.
This was, a session on heritage and wellbeing, very specifically, so there were colleagues there from the.
Norfolk Museum's service.
There was someone there from, who was very inspiring, who really got the conversation going.
His name was Colin Howey, from Men's Craft.
And Men's Craft is, a small charity based in, Norfolk.
Intended really, to get men,, or thinking about the health, their health and well being.
But actually essentially addressing the mental health, that men perhaps historically haven't been great at addressing, particularly if they've been through challenging times, times of, perhaps been in abusive, situations, have faced, challenges or bullying in their own world.
And seeing how by, working together and thinking innovatively and creatively, about working together.
They can find solutions together.
And he talked about, in that particular situation, how he had engaged with a group of, well, it, involves groups of men.
It can involve, students or, school children.
Thinking about how you, for instance, engage with a cathedral.
Some large, heritage asset like that.
And you go along and you think, okay, so who is responsible for this cathedral? And, The group might say, oh, it was the king or the pope or whatever who was responsible for creating.
And he is going, all right.
So who did the pope or the archbishop, commission to do it, and Oh, it was architects.
Okay.
Who did the architects work with? Oh, the stone masons.
Oh, so who did the, who's sporting The Stonemasons.
Oh, you have the apprentices.
and their families and so on and he made you see that we are all part of a much wider web of interconnection and that we all play a part in supporting the creation of this amazing building, this amazing, testament, this amazing monument, to our society.
We all play a part in that and it's understanding the part we play in that which is really.
Really important and To a certain extent, that's what we're hoping to do in a very small way, across Eastern Arc is make those connections and see how we can work together on it.
So if there's an initiative happening at one of the universities, and Ruth, you're completely right, that universities are no longer and definitely shouldn't be the ivory towers where smart people talk to smart people.
It's about, they are assets for our communities.
And I know that universities are increasingly and rightly engaging with communities to see how they can.
So an example is the University of Kent has a really interesting initiative at the moment around being a right to food university, and it's, I believe, the first in the country that's come up with this.
It's working with the Food Foundation to explore ways in which, Students can work with the community, whether that be, working with food producers who perhaps might have surplus produce, to bring that to food banks, or perhaps use that, to make cheap but nutritious meals on campus so that not only students but anyone, the public, can come along and have a cheap, affordable meal.
nutritious meal.
Things like that.
So, and also thinking through, so the right to food, absolutely that engagement between producer and consumer, between, farmer and university and town, making those links more.
But then also thinking about widening the understanding of, well, why are we in this, in this situation? So making sure that the understanding about food is right through, everything we do.
Whether that's how we teach the students, how we, Engage with the community and so forth.
So it's a sharing of good experiences.
I mentioned the Universities of Sanctuary, the UEA Essex and Sussex are, and they do great work in, offering places to sanctuary scholars, to people who are escaping conflict in their own country and need that safe haven in order To get that education and get that understanding and if we can connect up the great work that's happening at each of the universities, then we're making a difference, making a significant difference to our region.
and to the world more broadly.
So there's, lots of good examples that I can reach for, and I've already, mentioned the CODA network as a way of starting to connect people, working on issues of coastal, health data.
The Culture and Heritage Network, which Ruth is also part of.
takes forward some of the, things we learned at that conference and continues the conversations that started at that conference.
Not only the researchers, not only the academics, but also, people more broadly in the, different organizations, the different charities and so forth.
So it's making people aware.
of brilliant work that is going on throughout our region and in any number of different sectors, but connecting them up to work together to think how they can benefit from each other.
Thank you, Phil.
And it's amazing the amount of work that's going on and the cathedral story.
I remember that went all the way down to the person that made the lunch for the child to go to school, to grow up and become whatever role it was,, so I think it was fascinating.
What I'm thinking about here is there's so much going on.
What are the connections that you have or perhaps need to build or what's the infrastructure behind all this to make it all happen? What's working well, what could be better or different, you know? Yeah, absolutely.
So as well as those four focus areas that I've talked about, often when people come to me and say, So what is Eastern Art? What does it actually do?, I always point to it doing three things.
One is collaboration, which we've talked about quite a lot, but I really do want to emphasize how it's collaboration very broadly understood.
It's not just academics talking to each other, it is universities Talking with and hearing from stakeholders, it's people, it's the technicians within universities finding ways of opening up, and making available the equipment at their universities to others.
It's perhaps people working in the archives and special collections, it's the librarians.
talking together and working together.
So it is finding ways of collaborating.
So that's the first part of what we do.
The second part is around developing and supporting a positive research culture.
So historically, research has been very hierarchical, and people at the bottom of the hierarchy have often had a very very bad deal.
That's changing and has been changing for some time.
And certainly Eastern Arc is supportive of people feeling empowered, people having that agency, people learning from each other.
So we've set up a mentoring scheme so that people at one university can hear from people.
at another university and get that objective view on what they're doing.
We can open up the training that's happening at each university so that people can learn from each other, but also we commission reports to identify particular problems or issues to give evidence to that so that it's given the prominence it needs to in order to find solutions to it.
And then the final.
piece of what we do is the advocacy.
So speaking and working together as four universities, but also speaking on behalf of our region.
So at the beginning, I talked about, our region being Of, perceived, prosperity and productivity in the national narrative.
When you see, whether it be the leveling up of the previous government or the regionalization and, the industrial strategy and devolution of the current government, a lot of the narrative that you hear is that the greater Southeast is a region of prosperity and productivity and doesn't necessarily need any further support.
And I think that's.
A dangerous narrative because there is significant need within our region.
But yes, we do have areas of amazing productivity and prosperity.
We have the Golden Triangle between Oxford, Cambridge and London.
We have the M4 Corridor in the Greater South East.
And we have areas of significant prosperity in places like Sevenoaks or Cambridge.
But we do have significant deprivation and it's really important, I think, for us in whatever role we are to advocate and make this case for our region and the needs of our region.
And I continue to do so, whether that be talking to politicians, working with policymakers, talking to funders about the kind of things that they're, they're funding and making sure that there's a more granular understanding of regional need that the greater Southeast isn't.
the land of milk and honey, perhaps.
It's, great and there's an awful lot of good things going on here, but there is still a significant amount of need within this region as well.
That's fascinating, actually.
And that's not something I've heard each of those words probably, but I think you really explained that well.
And I think delved a bit deeper there.
So one of the things that, the collaboration and the fact of linking in with all those stakeholders that you mentioned.
And one of the things that I know that you've spoken about is those links in with health and perhaps the, I say the NHS, but actually other health areas as well.
Because I know that you're linked in with the Niche project, which is a project in Norfolk.
But.
I know that you've talked about how it's quite difficult sometimes to create or forge those links.
Is there anything that you think needs to happen or that we, that people might be able to do to create those links a little bit easier? Oh, I wish I had the, uh, I wish I had the magic secret to unlocking that.
It's just for me anyway, it's just trying any number of.
different initiatives and never giving up, with that.
So, as I say, the Coda network is an example of that, that I originally had the idea quite soon after Chris Whitty published his report, and that was 2021, so that was, three and a half, four years ago now, and it's just developed over time, and Initially, on quite a small basis, we had a workshop, we had another workshop, and slowly it just gathered momentum to the stage we're at now.
So yesterday we had the first of our larger meetings, so we now have 140 plus people involved in the CODA network.
And 45, 50 of them came along yesterday to talk about, right, okay, we've got this opportunity.
How do we work together? So to talk about that, but also to hear a really inspiring example of, of how we can make our data more available, how we can break down barriers, to working together.
We heard from, someone at the the Suffolk County Council in the Suffolk Office for Data and Analytics, who talked about their experience, after the or during the pandemic, when we were facing this significant challenge to our very existence.
And there was a need to really break down those barriers to learn to understand who was suffering most in the pandemic, where the help was needed.
the most.
They needed to get a number of different data sets.
And it could be things as simple as understanding who, was, registered with the council for getting help with putting their bins out.
So that was a proxy for understanding who was frail, perhaps, or who is in need of additional support.
And cross referencing that with.
data that the NHS might have about vaccination rates or something.
And so bringing those together, enabled them to do something which they'd been wanting to do for some time.,
In bringing together different data sets and being able to access data and use it in a creative way, and it shouldn't have taken a pandemic.
To get to this stage, but thank goodness.
Some positive came out of that.
So the Coda network allows us to hear about that really good experience, but it has taken three years of just quietly, gently nudging people towards working together.
Sometimes things take off immediately.
Sometimes they just take longer.
But the take home for me is to never give up, to keep and continue having those conversations and encouraging people to work together.
And to have.
And this is what I always say when I bring people together the first time.
Let's just have the conversation and if nothing comes from it, that's absolutely fine.
But it's always worth having that conversation.
And I do feel a bit like those old fashioned telephone operators where you're plugging one person into, another.
And just allowing them to have that conversation.
So have those conversations, encourage people together.
If nothing comes of it.
Fine, but it won't be for want of having a conversation.
I think that's something that I've always said as well, Phil.
There's never a conversation I've had that hasn't led to something, however small or big.
Absolutely.
It's given you either another awareness, or another idea, or another thought, or something happened, even if it's not directly, something else has come away from that.
What I like there as well, we're talking about data and data is one of these things people think about data and what's it for and what does it do and what do we use.
But just that simple one of thinking about actually who does, who needs help to put their bins out and why are they getting everything that they need.
So using data like that and coming together.
And I think perhaps it's just about people, understanding our stakeholder groups.
It's something that, in research, we talk about who are state or anything, who are stakeholders or our key stakeholders, but actually beginning to think about a network of such as art as being a stakeholder when we're doing something about health or social care should almost be an a natural.
Next step to think, actually, have we included them into this project and or when you're perhaps a season out going to those groups for them to say, Oh, yes, we know who you are.
And we can understand why you might talk to us about this.
So it's about, just keeping those barriers down and open and as much as possible.
But it's, I think from what I've seen and heard from you, that you've made massive leaps over this last period of, time since COVID, as you say, particularly that these things are really, that drip drip and that keep going, keep talking has made a massive difference.
Absolutely.
I'm glad you think, I'm glad you think that Ruth.
It feels like we are making progress.
I always want to make more progress more quickly.
But it is the drip drip, the keeping, on at things and slowly making progress.
It feels actually since, even since Christmas.
It feels like, the word has slowly caught on that more people are coming.
I'm having to pester people a bit less, the people are coming to me quite naturally.
The social justice is an example of that, that completely unprompted, these two different people came to me and said, actually, I can really see links.
It would be great to link with UEA or it'd be great to link with Sussex on this one because I can see lots of opportunity there.
And similarly that I was having a conversation, this morning, someone put me in touch with, someone working at a further education, college, McCann College, in Maidstone and Gillingham.
And, They were saying, they worked for, a healthcare partnership in Medway, and they were saying you should really talk to, so and so because I think what you're doing in terms of engaging with the community is completely in line with what they're doing embedded in the community and working for the community in the skills training, in the identifying need, working with.
People who perhaps have less opportunity and, we had a great conversation and we're going to hopefully, work together going forward.
And we talked about the Sanctuary piece, the conference this year, at the University of Sussex is going to be on Sanctuary, 10th of September.
Put it in your diary.
And she was talking about the experience that they had with refugees from Ukraine, and how they had needed to work with them in, developing language skills, English language skills, but they were coming at a certain times of the year, and, They weren't able to sign up immediately to the courses offered by Mid Kent College, so they worked with them in a creative and proactive way to almost provide pre course learning and support for them.
And so, once again, a great example of thinking creatively about things.
But it does take a long time to make change, and it's continuing to be optimistic, hopeful, and really believe in the change you can make.
It will take time.
And we shouldn't be in a rush to, to make it.
We should want that change.
We should be impatient for it, but we should be accepting of the fact that it sometimes does take time, for people to be aware of what you're doing, but also engage with what you're doing.
Thank you, Phil.
And that's great.
You know, I always liken it to a snowball and it takes quite a while to pat that centre bit down and make it really work before you can get it rolling and get that momentum for it to go.
So, I think that's a really good, way that you put it, having that patience and giving it that time.
And it's good to hear that those links are really beginning to forge as well.
So before we start to finish our conversation, I'm just wondering if you've got any sort of key messages or things that you'd like people to take away.
I will just mention actually the conference because I was going to ask you that.
I think we can put that, a link to that in the chat and I would absolutely advocate for anybody who had any interest in the health and well being of their community.
I think that would be a reasonably enough link.
Would you agree? Oh, absolutely.
Yeah.
And I should, I should say that, With our conferences, the idea is to be very much facing outwards.
We're not wanting to be four universities facing inwards and talking to each other.
Actually, the more people from outside the universities who come along, and whether it be hearing about the research going on, whether it be, Leading a session and talking about the work going on within the community.
Absolutely brilliant that for the last three conferences, we've had about 140 people come along of whom two thirds are from outside of.
The university sector, so very much the stakeholders, the community members and so forth engaging, engaging with us.
So yes, do come along and we'll put a link in.
At the moment it's just a save the date, website, but we will be putting all the information on there when, we issue a call for sessions and then registration and so forth.
So all of the details will be there.
So take home message is goodness.
That's a big ask.
I guess the take home message for me is to think creatively and openly.
That something that you might think will lead to nothing or something that you think isn't irrelevant to your area of work is worth exploring, that everything is worth half an hour of a conversation.
Going back to that idea of it's always worth having that conversation.
My whole life is about having conversations and seeing how they go and seeing where we can go in thinking, the.
The what if, or why not, rather than why or who cares, I think it's really important, to be creative, constructive, positive, and open to, different ways of working.
I'd always encourage people.
to do that.
And if you have ideas, if you think, actually, this has sparked a possibility for me in my work, I'd be really interested about what the cutting edge of research in this area is, or there's a particular question that I really need to answer.
and it would be great to engage with universities and exploring that further, then do just drop me a line, and we can have that conversation, and hopefully I can put you in touch with the right people, or start to bring together a group of people.
We're currently looking at, A call from one of the funders that's looking at, economic inactivity, but particularly through a lens of ill health and drawing people together, to explore that is a really interesting, exercise.
So yeah, the take home message is be open, be creative, be up for having that conversation and seeing where it leads.
Thank you, Phil.
And I think that's a really nice note to end on.
So thank you very much for joining me today.
It's been absolutely fascinating as always.
And, yes, I definitely plan to be at the next conference and all the very best for the Eastern Arc.
Thanks very much.
Thanks very much for having me on your podcast.
Thank you for tuning in to So Who Cares Anyway? I hope you enjoyed today's episode, finding it both insightful and inspiring.
Don't forget to follow on your favorite podcast platform so that you never miss an episode.
If you like what you heard, please leave a review and share this podcast across your networks and with your colleagues, friends and family.
Your support means a lot to me and it will help me to continue to invite interesting, inspiring guest speakers for these podcasts to continue.
So join me and my next guest next week for more stories and discussions on So Who Cares Anyway? Until then, take care and stay curious.