Black Country Healthy Living- Women's Health

We organised three workshops as part of the Black Country Healthy Living Project which was funded by Heart of England Community Fund

 

We started with a morning workshop about cancer with a focus on Gynecological (female biological) cancers which are ovarian, cervical, uterine, vaginal and vulvar. 

The Engagement Specialists (Macmillan Personalised Care) Lesley, Kassie, and their colleagues from the Black Country ICB 

They delivered an engaging presentation on how gynaecological cancers can be caused in different ways for example- 

- smoking/vaping

- unhealthy eating

- age

- alcohol

- HPV

-  hormones 

 

All the above can cause different kinds of cancers not just gynaecological cancers. 

We were shown how to check our breasts for lumps using props made to show how to feel for lumps. 

There was also a visual prop of what cancer could do if left unchecked. 

We had a good conversation about the lack of access to health information in BSL highlighting the need for more transparency & better communication skills from the NHS themselves.  

Most of the attendees needed an interpreter presented at their cervical screenings or did not fully understand why it was being done. 

Most of the attendees were not aware they could be talked through the process and given various choices of how the screening could be done. 

Some had refused to attend cervical screenings due to lack of access and no information given in BSL. 

Currently, there are no BSL videos about the cervical screening process or HPV on the NHS England website to the surprise of the Black  Countr ICB specialists. 

 

After a short lunch break with some nice pizza, we then had an outreach officer from SignHealth who explained different types of abuse & how they can look different because of who is the abuser e.g. family members or someone they might be in a relationship with. 

There was a discussion of how some of us felt that we had experienced one of these types of abuse at some point in our lifetime which was not surprising as disabled women are at higher risk of being abused and less likely to seek support due to lack of access. 

We found this workshop interesting and would like to explore some topics in this area a bit more. 

We would like to thank the Black Country ICB and SignHealth for coming along to deliver great workshops and we hope to work more with them in the future. 

This would have not been possible without the funding from Heart of England Community Fund