We went to Growing Rooms, a hostel run by St George’s Crypt, to meet the residents for this Big Leeds Chat.
What did people say at Growing Rooms?
The switch to remote ways of staying in touch with each other and services was a big topic of conversation at Growing Rooms. Although there was acknowledgement that the internet offered some advantages, there was also a strong sense that person-to-person contact was a really important way of keeping people healthy and happy. This was why isolation had been so tough for some of Growing Rooms’ members, and there was worry that we might end up back in lockdown again.
Growing Rooms’ members wanted to see more people with lived experience of addiction and other issues working for health and care services. At the moment, barriers that get in people’s way when they want to find health and care work include expensive tuition fees and past convictions. There was a strong sense that people who plan health and care services weren’t connected enough to those of us who use the NHS.
People also talked about mental health services and how they didn’t always have a sophisticated understanding of medication, which made them less effective. Waiting lists were felt to be long, and there wasn’t enough of the aftercare recovering addicts need to keep clean. It was suggested that better data sharing between services would be helpful to fill in the gaps between that exist at the moment (although people also acknowledged that this could be tricky given the stigma around addiction).
