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HEALTH WARNING
We are no longer updating our Covid-19 hub regularly. That includes this page. Click here for the latest.
Men's health champions: an idea whose time has come
15/09/20 .
Blog
The Forum has been working with men's health champions in different places and guises for several years but it seems to me that this is an idea whose time has come.
Health champions are non-health professionals who listen and talk with others about their health. Anyone can do it. In a pandemic, the barriers to regular health services are even higher than they usually are. But at the same time, mental and physical wellbeing are under increased pressure. It's a major challenge. Talking to someone can make all the difference.
Health champions can operate in groups, clubs, societies, workplaces - any collective of people, really. But when collective activity is less face-to-face and more online, they can really come inot their own.
For an employer looking to provide a safe and easy point of contact, for a club that's currently not meeting so much or at all, a health champion could help keep the group together and support those who may be in difficulty.
- The Forum runs regular online health champions training course open to anyone at all. The course is 2 x two hour sessions. Find out more about being an Champion and train to become one.
Jim Pollard,
Editor
- Read more about health champions training.
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The Men’s Health Forum need your support It’s tough for men to ask for help but if you don’t ask when you need it, things generally only get worse. So we’re asking. In the UK, one man in five dies before the age of 65. If we had health policies and services that better reflected the needs of the whole population, it might not be like that. But it is. Policies and services and indeed men have been like this for a long time and they don’t change overnight just because we want them to. It’s true that the UK’s men don’t have it bad compared to some other groups. We’re not asking you to ‘feel sorry’ for men or put them first. We’re talking here about something more complicated, something that falls outside the traditional charity fund-raising model of ‘doing something for those less fortunate than ourselves’. That model raises money but it seldom changes much. We’re talking about changing the way we look at the world. There is nothing inevitable about premature male death. Services accessible to all, a population better informed. These would benefit everyone - rich and poor, young and old, male and female - and that’s what we’re campaigning for. We’re not asking you to look at images of pity, we’re just asking you to look around at the society you live in, at the men you know and at the families with sons, fathers and grandads missing. Here’s our fund-raising page - please chip in if you can.
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