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Speaker
Hello, welcome to the Yes to Life show. I’m Robin Daley, host for the show and founder of Yes to Life, the UK’s integrative cancer care charity, helping people with cancer to find out about and use integrative medicine to support their recovery. In today’s show, I’m going to be spotlighting two of the services that YestoLife offers that provide connection and support through what is well known to be a hugely challenging and isolating experience, cancer and cancer treatment. I’m speaking to two of our team, Shafia Begam, who runs the peer-to-peer scheme, and Sarah Spinks, who’s in charge of the wigwam support groups program.

Speaker 2
Thank you very much.

Speaker
Thanks, Robin, it’s lovely to be here. So, this is a bit of an in-house show today, focusing on two of the services that Yes to Life offers to help people connect with other like-minded people with cancer.

Speaker
So, today we’re going to be speaking about the WIGWAM support group scheme and the peer-to-peer support scheme, one of which you are each running. So, just to get the ball rolling, I thought I’d ask you both to set out your stall with a very brief summary of why you think someone listening might want to consider joining the service that you run. So, Shafia, maybe we’ll start with you. Give us your elevator pitch for the peer-to-peer scheme.

Speaker 2
Okay I think people should join the peer-to-peer scheme because it’s very unique in the fact that you’ll be matched with somebody who has had a previous cancer diagnosis and so they really can be empathetic and understanding to the most recent diagnosis that the mentee would have received. It’s a safe space, the mentors are, they’re trained, they get regular supervision, they’re part of the mentoring scheme might not be for you when you come to the end of your 12-week session then they can signpost you onto another service that is going to be just perfect for you. It can be a lonely and frightening place where you may not want to share your fears and your worries with your family and friends even if you do have a very strong network but to talk to somebody who knows what you’re going through but may not be, where you may not have to worry about their reaction to your diagnosis is really important and that’s why we set the scheme up and it’s the feedback that we’ve heard the most from those who are using the service.

Speaker
Fantastic. Okay, great. And Sara, what’s your elevated pitch for the Wigwam support group scheme?

Speaker
Fantastic, Robin, thank you. The interesting question for me with the Wigwam support group is how does that differ from other support groups that may be out there as well, because of course it offers that safe and nurturing space to all come together and discuss the shared experience. And the Wigwam groups in particular offer that space for you to, I suppose, ponder and process and discuss your desired approach. I think, certainly from my own experience, when there are some wonderful groups out there, there’s a more sort of narrow approach with traditional medicine, and that may be considered. But with the Wigwam group, we’re very much discussing what we can do as well in terms of lifestyle and behavioural and complementary approaches in order to support the journey and navigate it. And I think that can create an awful lot of overwhelm in people. It certainly did for myself. And to be able to process that with others going through the same, away from the emotions either created by or for our family members and friends can be incredibly powerful, just to create that space for us to sort of go through what those options might be and navigate our own approach. I think reducing that overwhelm can be very sort of helpful to health and healing in itself. So a certain amount of overlap there clearly between the two schemes. Okay, so thanks. So before we dig into the detail of schemes, it’d be love to hear a little bit about your own backgrounds and why you’re involved in this particular work with this particular charity, Yes To Life. So Saru, do you want to tell us a little bit? Yeah, it was five years ago, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. And of course, at that first diagnosis, I didn’t know what stage or grade or anything really about the cancer that I was about to experience. I’ve always been interested in health. I’ve been plagued with sort of health conditions and intolerances and niggles my whole life. And I felt that I was fairly on top of it, but obviously a cancer diagnosis catapulted me into a new, I suppose, space of inquiry. I’ve got a bit of a curious mind, some might say I’m a bit over analytical. But thankfully for that, having been told not to do any research by my care team, which was a bit surprising for me, I really started to dig in to a lot of information. And the Yes To Life book was one of the first resources and it came upon, thankfully, which is obviously an absolute wealth of information of all the things that we can do to support ourselves both in body with diet and movement, exercise, sleep, for example. But I hadn’t been aware of the emotional and behavioral aspects that can obviously influence health. So it really triggered my interest in that. I ended up working with an integrative doctor and training with her in holistic health.

Speaker
I then moved into helping others with mentoring and then coaching and then discovered functional medicine and then started to train in that as well and qualified as a functional medicine coach. And it’s just taken me along this beautiful journey of the last five years that now has thankfully brought me back to Yes To Life and being able to support capacity. I do want to mention one thing is that I was in the end diagnosed with a stage one cancer. And somebody in one of the week one cafes recently put it very succinctly that she hadn’t approached us before because she didn’t feel she deserved to says that I must admit I did feel a lot about that way myself. Therefore, I was fine using paid resources like the wonderful conferences or a book, but I didn’t actually take advantage of some of the resources in terms of support groups and peer to peer obviously this was they came about slightly after my diagnosis as well. Yeah, yeah, I found that really interesting because obviously we’re there for everybody in that stage of the journey has become very interesting to me as well with regards to what stage you are, not just whether you know stage one up to stage four, but equally what stage you are on your journey, whether it’s pre treatment, during treatment and navigating that, or what happens after that and I think we need support to all of those stages.

Speaker
Hmm, really interesting points. I hope anybody listening who’s in that position pricks up their ears and maybe thinks about joining one of the groups. That will plug in there for our book. Thank you very much. The cancer revolution of anybody’s interested in getting a copy go to our website and look out a copy. Shefia.

Speaker 2
I was drawn to Yes To Life for two different reasons. One, I am really passionate about working with volunteers. I love working with volunteers and I have done for many years. And so the peer project working with volunteers was definitely right up my street and that’s probably the main reason. I think the second reason was, so back in I think 1999, I started working at the Nutri Centre which was just underneath the hell clinic.

Speaker
I remember it, yeah.

Speaker 2
Yeah so I worked there and I had no idea about alternative health or integrative medicine or holistic medicine or anything like that and so I was in this world where I took a gap year from after my A levels and I worked in this field and I was blown away, truly, I was blown away with the kind of stories that I heard from the people coming in who were using supplements or using alternative practitioners sometimes alongside orthodox medicine sometimes not and I was fascinated by it and then it led me to do nutritional therapy at Westminster Uni which was quite new at the time they had their own clinic situated on site and so as a practitioner in training we had access to those clinics and to actual patients that we would watch via video qualified practitioners so it’s just it was just really fascinating as I was surrounded by students who were doing herbal medicine and homeopathy and acupuncture and for me this was brand new and I think I was 19 at the time and I think it just really changed my life in a way that it’s made me more appreciative of other factors that contribute to our well-being and I’m just so grateful for that experience actually because otherwise I’m not sure how else or where else I would have gained so much knowledge and so it’s definitely a part of my everyday life and it’s I try to kind of share that with family and friends and and I don’t know I just I really like the fact that I guess yes to life is very kind of clued on with with that side of health that is sometimes ignored so yeah both of my kind of interests combined in one charity has been great has been really nice very nice

Speaker
Well, that growing awareness of the other factors that influence health and well-being is sort of society, why I feel you’ve been experiencing that along with everybody else. It seems like it’s really changed dramatically in the last few years, particularly through Covid and the whole area of well-being and looking after yourself and the kind of relationship with nature and all that kind of thing, which nobody even thought about it before, has become front and centre. So, I’m very pleased about that, of course, because that’s the kind of stuff we’ve been banging on about forever, and so, yeah, excellent. Okay, so I wonder if both of you could talk about the particular issues that people with cancer face, which you think these particular services can help address. So, either of you just chime in with your thoughts on that.

Speaker 2
I think for the peer-to-peer project, the thing that I hear the most is loneliness, fear, not wanting to worry their family and loved ones with the diagnosis. I think also knowledge, not knowing where to go, what’s out there, what could work, what has somebody else tried that maybe their doctors aren’t recommending that could make a difference. I think those are the key themes that I see when people are requesting peer-to-peer support.

Speaker
Hmm, how about you, Sarah?

Speaker
It’s very similar, actually, to use Shafia, that loneliness, that isolation of a, of a different journey, I suppose, with those taking an integrative approach, because most of the people in our groups are doing a combination of the traditional orthodox Edison and the complimentary approaches. And I think, you know, I’ve mentioned before, that can create an awful lot of overwhelm, but I think it’s the disconnect between both of them at the moment that cause people the most concerned. And I think when we are feeling more vulnerable, going through that cancer journey, for want of a word, that vulnerability can create an awful lot of fear, or more fear than we might have anyway, with the diagnosis. And when we’re getting one opinion given by, I’ll use the terminology mainstream medicine, which can be very different from an integrative approach, or somebody more proficient in integrative medicine or integrative oncology, that can cause a lot of confusion. And I don’t think it’s because sort of mainstream or our auntie, you know, it’s looking after ourselves yourself, Robin, the, you know, the advances in health and that education at the moment about how we can support ourselves, sort of all mind, body and spirit is, is truly out there at the moment. But it’s almost like we’re still falling in between two stools of an illness pandemic, or a disease pandemic, and this health trend. And it’s how do we navigate that? How do we bring it together in order that we can bring that into our daily lives, with sort of self management strategies, and taking the pressure off of us? You know, a lot of people have moved from very busy lives and think, okay, this cancer diagnosis has given me permission to look at my health. And we move into just another long to do this, you know, meditation, I must do yoga, I must drink my juice, I must do this, I must try to stop my thoughts. I know I’m stressing, I know that stress isn’t good for me. And we move into a different state of stress to the thought. So it’s providing sort of the reflection to that, I think when we can see it in others, it’s much easier than seeing it in ourselves. And that’s a real true benefit of the group. Because when somebody else say what we’re feeling or experiencing it, I think that’s where the power really lies. And it and also in giving that support to others, really enables us to seek our own answers of what can help ourselves too. And also it gives the feeling of well being when we’re there for other people as well. But that would be, I think that. Lots of things. Okay, fantastic. Thank you. So I mentioned beginning, there’s a bit of overlap in the way you spoke about both these services, even though the different services now, I wonder if there’s a sort of cross virtualization going on between them. Do people move from one to the other or even use both?

Speaker 2
Yes, definitely. iPad, at least one mentee who’s had a couple of sessions with a mentor and then heard about the groups and then decided that the group was the support that she would prefer. So there’s definitely been overlap that I know of at least twice. To be honest, that’s kind of the the aim anyway is that because the peer-to-peer support is obviously quite intensive and it’s meant to be short term, it’s ideally a 12-week program and beyond that we would like it if the mentees still felt like they needed support and the groups are an ideal setting for that. Yes, so there is definitely cross-specialisation. That’s what I said, yeah.

Speaker
to start with as well that can people can feel a little bit intimidated by the group scenario that personally in there for an introduction to receiving support because sometimes it’s difficult for us one to ask for support and then two to receive it but on a one to one basis can be incredibly nurturing and just what’s needed and then that expansion into the into the group scenario once we you know I suppose start to get our confidence a little bit can be very helpful but equally I have people in there the groups who I don’t think have used the one-to-one mentorship it’s certainly something that’s discussed within the groups as well of how helpful that can be as well as well being sessions then you know quite a lot of cross-fertilization with other services yeah yeah right okay fantastic now and I’d like to sort of dive into each of the services a bit now I thought I’d start with the wigwam groups uh sorry can you start out by telling us the basics like uh where they meet how often how many people are in them how many groups there are all that sort of stuff yeah absolutely um at the moment we have seven groups there we have around four online two two in the making um and sort of an equal number in person they tend to be there it certainly take place every month my group is every other week and there’s a couple of other online groups that are running every other week there are different times sort of and evening each group tends to have around eight people in it we feel that that’s sort of the maximum number in order that everybody can get heard and everybody sort of feels that you know we create friendships within these groups I’ve started volunteering as a group facilitator um a year ago in January and I think that really influences how the groups evolve so each group will have somebody who nurtures it who runs it and that’s obviously run on a volunteer basis um the people who are facilitators typically have had an experience with cancer realized the power in the group and therefore had said look I’d love to sort of get involved and do this as well so at the moment we have a couple of our original groups in Stroud we’re developing one in Hothole and one down in Totnes we have one up in Scotland which is just lovely um the people up there and the online groups obviously we have people distributed but also a couple of international members as well right okay fantastic so you’ve already said uh what you feel is kind of unique about the Wigram groups in terms of the fact that they’re kind of looking at things from an integrative perspective which is the the angle of the charity obviously this is what we’re about and so it’s definitely inclusive from that point of view isn’t it in in terms of uh all people are allowed to look outside the box basically comfortably and are supported in doing that so uh you just said you’re actually a group facilitator yourself which is uh interesting and did you actually set up this group no I didn’t set it up um the way that Wigram operates is we run something called a Wigram cafe okay a couple of times a month and it’s it’s basically a meeting of people via zoom people who registered um their interest in um joining a Wigram group and what we do to start with is I now run um the Wigram cafe and we’ve got one this afternoon and people come along to that and it just gives that experience albeit online um to connect to hear somebody else’s story to understand what it’s like to share I suppose and to feel what it’s like in that nurturing space and then after that um typically we can allocate people to groups if there is space my group came about because there were quite a number of people um looking for a group at that time um the Wigram coordinator at the time Philip um then ran the group for a little bit and I participated in it and then I was able to take the group forward up to that.

Speaker
And that’s typically how it’s worked. So anybody who is either within a group now or anybody who’s interested in leading a group, we obviously provide that support and sort of training and guide. Right. Yeah. So I wonder, you know, it sounds so each group’s kind of a, you know, it has its own character, that kind of individual. I’d just be interested to hear just a little bit for an example about yours, what the character of yours, the kind of things you do as a sort of topics you explore. Yeah, lovely. Well, typically, and I think this goes for some of the other groups as well. We open with a meditation or a breath work just to get people into the space and to release our day as it were all the stresses that we’re dealing with. I have four ladies within my group who have been there with me over the year. And then there’s been a couple of times where we welcome two new people. And then more recently, we’ve had another two new people join us as well. Friendships have certainly been built within that group. And what’s truly lovely is just recently when we welcomed two new members, I was asking the other members to introduce themselves and a little bit about their story. And several of the members within the group are dealing with stage four diagnoses. And this lady, she was just saying, well, I’ve been diagnosed with terminal cancer, and I’m navigating my way and I’m going through treatment. She said, and joining yesterday in the group, she said, it’s just been fantastic, really. And this is what I want to highlight about the groups is that yes, we are navigating such challenging circumstances with a cancer diagnosis. But we really celebrate the positives within that as well, because of course, there are very many. And that’s very apparent in the group. And therefore, there is this feeling of hope within it. We typically, everybody gets to share what’s going on for them, everybody gets to ask if they want the opinions of others, we have a set of guidelines within the ground, which is very sort of stringent about, you know, we don’t recommend, we don’t provide, you know, direction in that, in that way, we do talk about our own personal experience, as well as obviously able to share the resources of yes to life that are evidence based, but we do have strict guidelines. But within that, everybody can share their experience and everybody else gets the chance to say, well, I’ve tried this, or I’ve tried that. And it really gives them, it gives people hope and uplift and many people at the end of it say they just do feel much better. Inversely to that I had a lady recently who said she didn’t know whether she could come to the group, because she was feeling quite low, and she didn’t want to bring the group down. And that was really interesting, because we can, you know, lift each other up, but equally, of course, we’re there to support each other, there are enormous challenges to navigate. And that’s what the group’s there for equally. So thankfully, she came along and and it very much helped. That’s fantastic. If we get time after we’ve discussed what’s going on for us, we will bring in a topic.

Speaker
So we have discussed things like nutrition, one week or supplements another, and other things that we can support ourselves. So that that sort of tickle, and even during our conversation books that we’ve ran, or doctors we’ve talked to come up. But that’s all decided by the group, actually, which direction you get. Absolutely. So could vary a lot between one group and another one. Yeah. Interesting. So but importantly, as you said, there stops short of giving anyone advice or telling anybody what they ought to be doing. So much like the rest of your life, of course. So you mentioned they’re both in person and online groups. So potentially, there’s a group for anyone in the UK there. But what if nothing quite fits, just say someone’s got a particular topic they want a group to focus on and there isn’t one, or they’d really prefer to meet in person, but there isn’t a group nearby. What can they do? Well at the moment we’re obviously offering, we have the peer support if there’s something that doesn’t quite fit and I think that’s where that comes in very beautifully if somebody really wants to speak to somebody or to you know have that mentoring experience. What we are obviously trying to encourage is that if we have real advocates for yes to life who you know have a voice and want to explain how yes to life and supported them and create a group themselves then obviously that we’re very much there to support anybody who would like to create a group in their area and we’re creating something at the moment called the local ambassadors scheme which then has individuals all around the country who are advocates and a voice of yes to life and they sort of helping people navigate them to the right support within the charity and but also hopefully that then you know with the butterfly effect that we reach more people who then can come together as a group. Great so if somebody’s got that kind of pioneering mentality and things they could set one up there will help them to do it. Yes. Yeah does that also apply to online groups? Online groups too yes we’ve got a couple of people at the moment who are very interested in facilitation they’ve used that yes to life resources over the last few years been to every conference you know right and now feel confident enough with to put themselves for facilitation and I think that’s an interesting point Robin because myself as well I think looking back I was perfectly capable of facilitating a group for yes to life but I felt that so many others would either be doing it or even with the calls to action on social media there was something that prevented me from doing it and I think that was my own inner mind talk you know was I able you know it feels feels a huge responsibility okay but actually it’s sitting there with a group of friends a group of other humans who had a shared experience and I’d encourage anybody who feels they’re able to help yes to life in that way to sort of get in touch.

Speaker
Brilliant and also though if you haven’t got a friend who’s also just you could share the responsibility between you maybe yes yes most groups have sort of a wingman right somebody else who who would happily do that as well and a lot of groups if they’ve been you know evolved for a long time now wouldn’t even particularly have one facilitator it’s just somebody to open the zoom call if it’s online for example it’s sort of very balanced within the group. Okay fantastic thanks for that and now maybe we could hear a bit more about the peer fear scheme and Shafi there’s a simple kind of principle at work here you know connecting people with shared experience to provide support but who are the people that a new applicant gets connected to are they especially trained is there any kind of matching process going on?

Speaker 2
Yes there is, so the mentors are trained, they go through a training, I think it’s five hours of online training on various different topics but things that include things like boundaries and kind of safeguarding and that kind of thing. They also have a group induction with myself when they learn more about yesterlife and how they can identify what needs you know that mentee might come with in what services we have that they might think about signposting them on to. And the mentors they also have sessions with me, supervision sessions with me because obviously we recognise that our mentors are also have had previous cancer diagnosis, some are living with cancer still and so it’s important they get this from us as well. In terms of the matching really I think that we try to match as closely as possible with the kind of point of the cancer where the cancer origination point in the body as much as we can but where we can’t we will try to match on other things like gender and age. The sessions are very they are online and unfortunately I don’t sit in the sessions because obviously that relationship is very important between the mentor and mentee so I don’t actually know what gets discussed. The only way the way I evaluate is kind of afterwards it’s obviously talking to the mentor and after the session between both when I organise the next session between the two I will ask how did that session go and was it a positive experience for you and it’s always been yes so I know that the training that we’re doing is working. I think the only time where we I guess we’re very lucky that we work with another organisation in America that has been going on I think for 35 years and they do obviously they geographically much bigger and so for example I think I did have a a male mentee who was very specific about the kind of person he wanted to be matched with as in gender and treatment plan which I wasn’t able to match but I was able to refer to our partner organisation and they did find somebody pretty close not exactly but close enough I think and so I like to feel that even if I haven’t been able to match somebody that there is a resource that we can use that hopefully will find somebody even though it’s based they’re based you know this mentor would be based in the States but I’m glad that resource is there.

Speaker
Yeah, that’s pretty fantastic. Yeah. Okay. So we got a phone stroke internet based service, meaning location isn’t any sort of issues. You just pointed out. So how often do people do calls and how long do they tend to be?

Speaker 2
they’re usually an hour and they’re every week. And we say that the sessions, you can do them in blocks of 12, whether that’s once a month or once a week, or the pace is set by the mentee and to a certain degree, the mentor. And after the 12 weeks, we would review if the mentee felt like they needed more. That’s a conversation that we would have with myself and the mentor to see if that’s because really what we don’t want is kind of dependency. The whole point of the program is that mentees feel confident to seek maybe other services within their locality or other services within Yes To Live, sort of kind of well being. So yes, 12 week sessions, but sometimes we find that 12 weeks is not always needed. Sometimes it can be seen away for weeks and that person feels ready. It’s a lot. Yes. So say 12. But I mean, you know, there’s there’s no kind of you have to stick to the 12 weeks if they feel like we’ve had where people have left earlier, they’ve either moved on to the groups, or they’ve decided that the information that they needed or the support they needed, they had gained that fairly quickly. Some mentees have very specific questions. So they’ll want to know and where I’ve been able to match closely in terms of treatment plans, they really just have questions about, you know, what did that do? How did it work? What were the side effects? How successful was it? What did the mentor find? And so those sessions are sometimes less, you know, less than three. And they’ll go off and they’ll go and do their own thing. But that’s okay. You know, the mentor scheme is designed for the mentees to feel confident and feel like they can take ownership of their diagnosis. And, you know, try other things and do other things and be part of other things. And if that’s worked in one session, then that’s job done. You know, that’s great.

Speaker
And do people always stay with the same mental?

Speaker 2
yes they do yeah so far they have yeah so far they could change the matching processes yeah they could change yes

Speaker
Okay, so is this working well? And Sarah was saying there’s a kind of ground rules for the groups to keep them safe and ensure they run smoothly. You’ve got a similar kind of ground rules, I imagine, yeah.

Speaker 2
Yes. Yes. Yes. So the training part of the training covers, you know, obviously do not recommend any kind of health treatment that you may have had just because it’s, you know, may have worked for you. It may not work for this person. And none of the mentors are medical professionals or, or therapists. And so we don’t, the mentors are encouraged not to advise on any form of treatment via Orthodox or anything else. They’re allowed to share their own journey. They’re allowed to share their own, you know, treatment that they had, what worked for them, and what didn’t work for them. But, you know, everybody’s an individual. And so we can’t impose our own kind of beliefs onto the beneficiaries, onto the mentees. And that’s very important because it takes away the fact that actually the scheme is set up to allow somebody to feel confident enough to make their own decisions without somebody telling them. So it would kind of defeat the purpose of the mentor that took on that role.

Speaker
It’s a discipline, always keeping to that, but a very, very important one in order that people, yes, really do have the freedom to make up their own minds and don’t feel kind of pushed in any direction. Yeah, very good. Okay, so I’ve got something I want to ask both of you. Now, it’s well known that in an integrated medicine, it’s heavily weighted in terms of numbers towards women. That’s both in terms of users and providers. Although things are beginning to move towards a more balanced situation now. So, Percy, I was wondering what’s the situation in the group, Sarah, are there many men and do you think it could be a little bit daunting for a man to join a group? There are more women than men. My group is actually women only. There was a man at the beginning. I don’t know if it’s daunting. I find the same, and I don’t know if it’s similar for you, Shafia, that with that asking for support, anyway, it tends to be more women dominated than males. So, I don’t think it’s specific. I think it’s representative of the integrative cancer space, if you feel the same.

Speaker 2
I definitely have a lot more women as mentors and mentees. Funnily enough, I think one of the men that came with the service, it wasn’t him that applied, it was his daughter who filled out all his details and said, I’m his daughter and I just think he really could do with some support and so I’m filling in the form on his behalf. That’s interesting.

Speaker
haven’t mentioned yet is obviously we have a carer group and carer might be a word we’re sort of working with is for relatives who are supporting somebody with cancer. Right. And like you say, Shafir, it can be a different family member that gets in touch and requesting support for the other person, which is something we’re kind of working with as well at the moment to provide that support, but obviously it takes the individual to want to take that first step. So in short answer to your question, yes, we certainly have men in the group. There’s one group online that’s jointly run by a man. Right. And so you’ve got any particular thoughts about men’s involvement? We all know that men, yeah, they’re less likely to ask for support and these two services are all about support. So it’s highly likely you’d have less men, but you know, in my experience, it’s not that men need support and need less. It’s just they don’t ask for it. It’s not the right thing to do as a man, you know, so seem to be the right thing. You’ve got any thoughts about what we can do to change that or whether you think it is a problem even both in the group situation and the mentor situation? I think it’s the same, isn’t it? With the whole men don’t go to the doctors as often. Yeah, same thing. They’ve got a problem. They leave it. I think, you know, we’re thinking about tone of voice in terms of how we can speak to a man who’s going through that process. But it is challenging, isn’t it? Because the point of any action, whether we’re taking action for our own health or action in terms of that reach out comes onto that individual. So I don’t know if that’s more of a mainstream narrative in terms of men being able to take that step forward. I think a lot is being done in that area and I am seeing change. Yeah, me too. And it is improving for sure. But, you know, they need to go, let’s say. Yeah, I mean, have you both got experiences where you’d be able to say what you felt that men had used your service had gained from it? I have an example, actually, we had a facility meeting a couple of weeks ago. And one of the ladies who runs an online group, and she does run it with her male partner. And a man came to the group and there was a different dynamic that week, she suggested a few people weren’t able to turn up. And I think because there were fewer of them there, he’d actually reached an emotional critical point in his journey. And he actually had quite an emotional experience within the group. And the facilitator was expressing that she found it incredibly powerful and profound. And they just really held space for him. And therefore the focus was for him in the group to just unleash whatever he was experiencing. And I think it was quite it was incredibly profound for him. I don’t think he’d experienced something like that before.

Speaker
Interesting that the majority of the people there were women, and therefore that sort of feminine nurturing side enabled him to be able to do that. And I think that’s an incredibly powerful thing. I think there can be a lot of fear in showing our vulnerability, enabling our emotions to release, and we don’t actually know how to do it. It’s almost like we just have to provide the space and the possibility for that to happen. And then it can happen. And then when somebody like this gentleman was able to experience that immense comfort that came from the experience of being held within that, I mean, he’s then going to obviously, it’s not only going to help his journey, but he’s going to be an incredible advocate for all my goodness, this this is something that I may not have considered before, I may have felt resistance towards, and all of a sudden, this has kind of helped me with one of my own health breakthroughs. I think it is in the lived experience, but we have to put ourselves in a position of enabling a possibility to happen for that to be able to happen. And I think the groups and the mentoring are a wonderful way and a wonderful provision to provide that for somebody to just go, you know what, I’m just going to take a chance and see how this feels. You don’t even have to sort of dig deep in too much into your vulnerability at that point, you just have to just be in and see what happens. But yeah, that’s incredibly powerful for him, and equally for the facilitator and the group members to just be able to be there for him on that game, very powerful. Great story. Thank you. Shafiq, do you have male mentors?

Speaker 2
I don’t have male mentors, but I have a couple of male mentees and I’m at the point now where because I obviously have to allow some time for the sessions to happen and at least for I think three, four weeks before I can start asking for any feedback, but I’m starting to ask feedback from those who have been receiving the service for a bit longer. And so I think that when I’m able to share kind of case studies and stories and quotes from male beneficiaries, I’m hoping that that will kind of balance out, I guess, the number of men and women that are either receiving or participating in the service. It’s interesting actually, because I worked for many, many years ago, I worked for the mid-noughties, I think, and at the time their marketing was very much aimed at women because there was an understanding that men just didn’t seek support. And so they would target the women in their lives to try to get them to the GP and have the screening and all of this for prostate cancer. But I think maybe 10 years ago, eight years ago, they had a complete rebrand where they were very much focused on trying to use imagery and stories to try to get men to take, participate in the screening services for prostate cancer. And I think it was a success, you know, I don’t know what that is, obviously, I’m not privy to that, but they decided that actually they were going to completely change and bypass the women completely in their lives and go straight to the men and try to find the language and tone and images that would allow them to do that. And my understanding is that that was a big success. I think it’s definitely worth, you know, looking at that, because I do remember how they did try to attract kind of people to use their services. So it would be good to see how it’s changed, or at least to maybe have a conversation. I think if we wanted to delve into that more deeply, I think I would would like to have a conversation with the prostate cancer UK to see, you know, what did they what do they do? What kind of key learnings did they did they get from that from that kind of campaign that they were they targeted men very differently than they had done throughout their history.

Speaker
Very interesting. Well, it wasn’t that long ago, men didn’t even know they had a prostate, let alone what it did. So things have changed and also they certainly never would have talked about it and it’s quite easily talked about these days in a way. You’re quite likely to hear somebody chaffing about it on the radio or whatever. It’s not the taboo subject, it was. So things are easing up, but there’s an amazing weight of conditioning that all men are subject to, which is this stiff upper lip, I don’t need any help, I’ll be all right thing. And it’s a tragedy really, it seems to me, because men need every bit of support when they’re facing their horrendous diagnosis of cancer, as women do. There’s no difference, but they just don’t ask and therefore they don’t get it. So I think spreading the good news that you have of people who’ve come to use your service and what it’s done for them is an important thing so that people can actually maybe pick up an interest in it for themselves. Okay, what do you think about the idea of men only groups or women only groups intentionally? Is that something that happens or you think might happen? Certainly, consider the male only group. I think if, just in terms of what we’ve been saying is that would that be more attractive? I don’t know, I’d want to do a piece. I don’t know either. I need to ask a sample, see how attractive that would be. It’s certainly something that’s popped into my head. I think the balance might be key within a group. For example, my own group became very, it’s all women and therefore if a man were to come in, I’m very conscious of that changing the dynamic. So with the groups that we currently have, I do feel like a bit of a guard keeper of okay, who’s going to work with whom within that group because each group has its own dynamic. Interestingly, the in-person groups, I think, probably have more men in them than a proud one because I suppose then that’s based on locality, isn’t it? That, I think you’re right. Yeah, it’s probably there. It’s certainly something to consider, Robin. Yeah, yeah, no, it’s very interesting. It’s just there is this feeling, I think a lot of men will look at integrated medicine or particularly complementary medicine or whatever and just think, well, that’s women’s stuff, straight away. Obviously, if you arrive at a group and it’s all women, that’s kind of underlying the thing. So if it was actually specifically set up to target men, I can see that might be more attractive to some people to think, right, okay, this is for us. Yeah, it’s really interesting in the holistic health space generally. I have my own clients with that and people have advised me just target women because you’re better because you’re sort of niching and I’m like, well, no, I want to be there for everyone and I have several male clients and you’re right. The support is very much needed and it’s incredibly powerful and I think even more so probably with men because they’ve just not been exposed to that, you know, I am allowed to look after myself, I’m allowed to find my own answers.

Speaker
I’d have something specific that is like, you know, can draw and support men would be wonderful. Okay, well, look, lastly and importantly, how do people find out more about both services?

Speaker 2
Well, I mean, the peer-to-peer services promoted regularly on their social media website. I think the local ambassadors will soon start dropping off leaflets near you. Great. And obviously our newsletter that goes out to our warm contacts. And for anybody watching, I would say to please share with your contacts widely and share on your own social media our posts so that we can get the word out more easily. People who need us. Great, thanks.

Speaker
Completely agree. We have content forms on the website. It should be fairly intuitive to just click on groups, register. Then you get an invite to meet in the next week. We have a cafe or we have a chat and then decide how beneficiary would like to proceed, whether they’re looking for an in-person group or online. Typically get people placed now within, you know, two to four weeks.

Speaker
Fantastic. All right. Well, that’s it. So we’ve got time for today. Thanks very much. Both of you coming on the show and telling us about these Yes For Life services. I hope lots of listeners will be prompted to look into using one of them at least, or even maybe training to be a mentor or pioneering a new group. All of those will be fantastic. So thank you, Shafia and Sara.

Speaker
Do visit the Yes to Life website, that’s yestolife.org.uk, scroll down the home page and click the box that’s linked to our services, and there you’ll find links to the peer-to-peer scheme, wigwam, and all the other services that we offer.

Speaker
Today’s show has been about promoting YestoLife services, so I thought I’d end with a promotion for a fundraiser for the charity. We have an album of music for children and for parents who prefer something rather less gracing than much of the music sold for kids these days. It’s called Songs Our Parents Sang and it’s available from the YestoLife online store, which you can find a link to right at the top of every page of the wtobsite, that’s yestolife.org.uk. You can also read about the artist, Mirren, who’s actually part of the YestoLife team, at her website, that’s myrren.com, as well as sample all the tracks. I’m going to end the show with Mirren’s version of the classic Joni Mitchell song, The Circle Game. Thanks very much for listening. Do join me again next week for another YestoLife show.