Writer-in-Residence
for NHS North West R&D Team
Throughout 2013, I was Writer-in-Residence for the NHS North West R&D team.
I worked with them to help them team-build, to map out all the different narratives of their work, capture what they've achieved over the last few years, and support them in planning creatively for the future.
I also worked directly with top health researchers (e.g. the Suicide Tsar - see below) throughout the North West and wrote poems about them and their research, to help them understand the power of creativity in getting their messages across to the public and to clinicians.
Working with poets from all over the country, I created a huge database of poems on 12 key health issues - the R&D Team are using these as a resource in their events, and some of the poems are displayed on their website.
I worked with them to help them team-build, to map out all the different narratives of their work, capture what they've achieved over the last few years, and support them in planning creatively for the future.
I also worked directly with top health researchers (e.g. the Suicide Tsar - see below) throughout the North West and wrote poems about them and their research, to help them understand the power of creativity in getting their messages across to the public and to clinicians.
Working with poets from all over the country, I created a huge database of poems on 12 key health issues - the R&D Team are using these as a resource in their events, and some of the poems are displayed on their website.
Suicide Tsar
Yes - there really is one, and he's a really nice guy: Prof Louis Appleby CBE, who works at the internationally-renowned Suicide Prevention Centre at Manchester University. I went to interview him about his work, and wrote a series of poems about our meeting, and his research. He sent me an email about my poems saying:
"I have been thinking about your poems all morning. Absolutely fascinating. I am so impressed with how you have picked up on details of our conversation and turned them into images & themes. Very moving - research is a lot of things but not usually that. I want to give your poems a high profile alongside our work."
"I have been thinking about your poems all morning. Absolutely fascinating. I am so impressed with how you have picked up on details of our conversation and turned them into images & themes. Very moving - research is a lot of things but not usually that. I want to give your poems a high profile alongside our work."
