Pinewood House being creative during lockdown

The Covid19 pandemic brought the entire world to a standstill and presented new challenges to most people. For the staff and patients of Pinewood House in Treorchy, a community based mental health rehabilitation service, this was no different. As the world went into lockdown, all of the patient’s access to outdoors services closed.

Understanding that links to families and the community was essential, staff looked at alternative ways to create opportunities to maintain the support and links they offered which would enable them to provide the best possible care during these uncertain and sometimes frightening times.

With this in mind, staff in Pinewood House developed a series of social interactive groups for their patients, such as a creative writing group. This group allowed patients to deal with their own personal mental health and still stay in contact with the outside world.  The creative group gave patients the resources they needed to write to loved ones and friends and send home poems and book-marks they had made at Pinewood House.

One of the first pieces of poetry written by the group was to their Consultant Psychiatrist, Dr Shetty.

POEM – AN ODE TO DR SHETTY

THANK YOU FOR BEING OUR DOCTOR

WE RELY ON YOU BEING ALERT

YOU REALLY ARE A WONDERFUL MAN

YOU HEAL US WHEN WE ARE HURT

YOU HAVE A PLEASANT AND CHEERFUL MANNER

YOUR SMILE BRIGHTENS UP THE WHOLE ROOM

YOU HELP TO MAINTAIN EQUILIBRIUM

AND STOP ALL OUR MOODS GOING ZOOOOOOM

THANK YOU FOR BEING OUR COLLEAGUE

AND THOUGHTFULLY BRINGING US CAKE

OUR OLD GANG IS NOW BACK TOGETHER

AND WOW!.. WHAT A GREAT TEAM WE MAKE

Claire Goatson, Manager for Pinewood House said: “The creative writing was borne out of an acknowledgement of the importance of maintaining links with family and friends and thinking outside the box how we could do that in a time when visiting and social contact was really difficult.

“We anticipated a small take up but actually there were a number of regular attendees at the group who were keen to become involved in a variety of creative writing sessions initially – but through discussion we discovered patients wanted to use the time to hand write letters home.  This often involved sending small gifts they had made in craft groups such as fridge magnets, book marks etc.

“Everybody was very excited to receive return letters from family and friends. It was very clear that a hand written piece of paper was something that was cherished and a physical item that was a link from home to be kept in their own bedroom space whilst missing the usual regular contact. In addition we used the opportunity to maintain contact with staff who were off shielding or ill with Covid to let them know we were thinking about them and they remained a strong and missed part of our team.

“This had very special responses from a group of staff who were keen to be part of our support and continue to share care and commitment to our patient group – but were not able to at that time due to the restrictions and management of Covid. We displayed the responses from the staff for all to see and it continued to boost morale and maintained, if not strengthened team spirits.”

You can see the video produced to celebrate the success of the creative writing workshop on Youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FCvn3PIKs4