Ana* began working with our Central Social Prescriber at the beginning of April with a goal to connect more with new people and build on their current routine. Ana had requested to work with Social Prescriber via virtual sessions – at first, beginning with a telephone call – as they did not feel able to meet face to face yet. Ana was hoping to build up her confidence in leaving the house by herself, as this was something she very rarely did. In discussion, Ana identified her main goals as being able to:
- feel confident enough to go the shops alone
- engage in work
- use public transport alone
The Social Prescriber worked with Ana to identify any barriers she felt were preventing her from reaching these goals. Ana recognised that experiencing high levels of anxiety was one of the main reasons she did not feel comfortable leaving the house, and that this often influenced her motivation, resulting in her avoiding any situations which would affect this.
Working together, Ana and her Social Prescriber were able to identify coping mechanisms that she found useful in managing anxiety, using several different grounding techniques alongside journalling methods. They also worked on replacing existing unhelpful coping techniques, such as skin picking and nail biting, with more positive methods such as stress balls or fidget toys. For a few sessions, they focused on challenging and managing this anxiety until Ana felt comfortable in identifying and managing anxious triggers to move through these and continue with certain tasks, rather than avoiding them.
During subsequent video call sessions, Ana and her worker identified several other services that would be helpful for her to engage in. Additionally, Ana was encouraged to plan a public transport route that she could use to reach their next meeting point in person.
After spending previous sessions planning this face-to-face meeting, Ana met with her worker as agreed. She identified that she’d used skills developed in previous sessions to combat her anxiety and achieve this goal.
Ana wanted to engage in a particular local project and look at accessing housing support. She also wondered if there was any further help she could access for employment. All these services were based within Sheffield city centre, so Ana and her worker worked together again to navigate the centre and visit each location together, ahead of Ana engaging with them. During this time, the Social Prescriber was also working with the other support services to help link them with Ana and support communication between the services.
Towards the end of June, Ana was beginning to engage with employment support, housing support and further community groups to build her connections in Sheffield and meet new people. She had overcome the barrier of high levels of anxiety preventing her from reaching her goals, employing coping strategies and techniques she learned through working with her Social Prescriber.