During the Covid-19 lockdown, Lisa Edwards was at a low point, struggling with chronic fatigue syndrome and out of work for the first time in her life
But Lisa – who is 40 and lives in Birtley – was referred by her GP to a community support worker from Gateshead community charity Edberts House. They helped her to use her skills and experience from working in the arts and charity sector in her native Scotland to volunteer helping others.
She first spent time helping with window dressing at another borough charity, Changing Lives, while she also got involved supporting arts programmes at Edberts House during the pandemic. After supporting a gardening project, she worked closely with a community development worker at the organisation’s Pattinson House in Felling.
This led her to apply for – and get – the same job at Larkspur House, which Edberts House also runs and is on the Beacon Lough Estate. There, she now works with Lucy Gray – a youth and community worker who had volunteered there for years too.
Lisa told ChronicleLive how volunteering had changed her life after a tough time. She said: “It had been the first time that I’d not been in work in my adult life. I had been ill and eventually had a diagnosis of CFS
Edberts House youth worker Lucy Gray, 22, with a youngster
(Image: Edberts House)
“I moved down here [from Scotland] and said I would give myself three months to get on my feet. But it didn’t really happen like that. I am not someone who just takes something that you are told but I was going to CFS clinics and just told there was nothing they could do for me.
“But then the thing that really helped me was the doctor referred me to a community link worker. At the time, I didn’t realise it was a – wonderful – Edberts House community link worker. She gave me a real understanding of the work that Edberts do with people.”
Lisa added that she found the experiences she herself has been through allowed her to empathise with the people in the communities where Edberts House is based. She said: “I have been through quite a lot in my life and I can use that to relate to the people we work with. So I ended up volunteering doing window dressing at the Changing Lives shop in Gateshead and then I went on to volunteer at Pattinson House.
“There I helped to run creative workshops for children, and there was the garden project. By the end of this, I was feeling a bit better about myself – while still having CFS I felt far better than I had. My background was in arts so I was able to support [Edberts] with creative stuff especially working with children.
“It’s about creating opportunities for people and bringing communities together – creating collaborations and relationships, and really developing people and helping them to progress in all areas of their life. It’s things that are really necessary in our local communities.
“At Edberts we all take real pride in our areas and feel very privileged to be part of the communities. I was so very welcomed into the Beacon Lough area. I have lived in the North East for eight years and for the first four and half in many ways I was flailing about on my own. Being without connection to friends or family really can be so damaging to people’s lives”
Meanwhile, Lucy grew up in the Beacon Lough area. After a placement during her degree fell through, she spent eight weeks working at Edberts. Now she’s half a year into a paid job there.
Lucy said: “I started out as a volunteer years ago with my mam and dad. I always had ideas but was sometimes frightened to go about them. I completed an eight-week placement at Edberts and on the last day they offered me the job.
“I was welcomed into Larkspur House a fair few years ago – it was always so nice to feel so welcome. It inspired me to want to be able to work here. It’s just about supporting people – that could be just making sure to wish someone a happy birthday, which is massive, as they might not get another message.”
Lisa added that the organisation’s wider purpose was to work at a grassroots level to materially improve people’s lives – and help to tackle the public health challenges which can see people in areas of the North East and of Gateshead live shorter and less healthy lives than people in similar situations elsewhere in the country.
Lisa said it was all about getting to know people. She said: “All of our work is relationship-based. We build these really deep relationships with people across their lives. And sometimes that can be the first positive relationship that someone has.
“People come to trust us and then we can work almost as a broker – We are the people people come to when something goes wrong – but also we are where they come when they have something wonderful to share, too. Someone can be coming to us in crisis one week before coming the next week to celebrate with us.
“And at the end of the day all of the work we do feeds into the wider public health issues. We tackle the things that can lead to poor health. It’s all about improving the life expectancy of people in the areas where we are.”
Earlier in December, Lisa was Mrs Claus at the Larkspur House Christmas Fair. At that event, she explained further; “We work alongside the community and are very much about listening to the needs the community has! It’s all about what the community wants.”
Edberts House works to support those living across Gateshead and has a focus on community development and tackling health inequality which – across the North East – can see people live shorter, unhealthier lives than those living in other parts of the country.
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