Local social prescriber Bronagh has received 365 referrals in a year

Bronagh Cooper, who has worked in the community for over 10 years, is a SPRING Social Prescriber with Bogside and Brandywell Health Forum.

Since the project was launched in July 2018, Bronagh has changed the lives of hundreds of people within the community, helping to tackle the issues of mental health and depression.

Bronagh is the SPRING Social Prescribing Co-ordinator for the Western Health and Social Care Trust area, and in the last year alone, has received 365 referrals of people in Derry on the programme.

Social Prescribing is rolled out across the UK and Ireland, and Bronagh underwent a rigorous interview and skills test to be appointed Social Prescribing Link Worker Champion in Northern Ireland.

“Becoming a Champion means my role is to raise the profile of SPRING Social Prescribing and that everyone in the community recognises it as a good model of practice,” Bronagh said. “We also want to ensure that Social Prescribing is recognised as a health profession, like Social Work and other health professionals are within the health services, and funded by the Health Service.

“If an individual goes to their GP with symptoms, like depression or chronic pain, the GP will then give them a Social Prescription.

“That is where I come in as a Social Prescriber. It is my role to meet with the individual and get to the bottom of what the cause is. GPs only give medication to treat someone with anxiety, but my role is to find out what the root cause of the anxiety is and help address that.

“The aim is to reduce the amount of medication a person is on and to reduce the number of visits required to the GP practice,” explained Bronagh.

“I find a lot of joy in my work. My purpose is to guide people to programmes to help improve their health.”

Bronagh has assisted in establishing chronic pain groups and a nature walking group.

The Nature Walking group is open to the whole community, as is all of the support programmes established by SPRING Social Prescribing.

“The idea is to identify the need within the community. People tell us what they need and we put that support in place.

“We don’t isolate our programmes, they are open to the whole community and to anyone who feels they would benefit,” she added.

To find out more about SPRING Social Prescribing visit /www.springsp.org/