In the latest of our series focusing on our academics, their research and its impact on students and communities, Dr Philomena Commons from the School of Health talks about the work she and her students are doing with St George's Crypt, a charity supporting the homeless population in Leeds.

Host

Hello and welcome to Beckett Talks, the podcast series from Leeds Beckett University and these podcasts we will be showcasing our diverse community of students and academics, touching on the important themes that surround universities today.

Interviewer

Today I'm joined by Dr Philomena Commons, senior lecturer in physiotherapy at Leeds Beckett University's School of Health. And we're going to be talking about medicine on the margins and the important work Dr Commons and as students do with St George's Crypt, a Leeds based homeless charity. Welcome to the studio, Dr Philomena Commons. And to begin with, can you tell me a little bit about yourself and how you got into this particular field?

Dr Commons

Yeah, well, how I got into teaching physiotherapy at Leeds Beckett was after working almost two decades in physiotherapy both here and overseas, I decided it was time to help more in educating future generations. So I signed up as part of the teaching team in Leeds Beckett.

Interviewer

Can you explain how Leeds Beckett came to work with St George's Crypt and how it allows us to help our local community?

Dr Commons

Yeah, the university has got a strong ethos about being an integral part of the community, and the community benefiting from them, and them benefitting from the community. So one of the things we did and we do regularly is invite external speakers to speak about their projects. And one of those projects was a project working with homeless people, and particularly we invited them to tell us more about the health needs of homeless people.

Dr Commons

Now from that from that session, the idea came to me as the module leader that we should engage more in a practical sense with the homeless population and therefore we approached St George's Crypt, which is a city centre project working with homeless. And we said to them, Look, we've got all our healthcare students here. We're here on your doorstep.

Dr Commons

How can we engage and how can we support you from the student population? And also you support us in that interaction benefit in our students. And that's where it started. And that was way back in two thousand and eleven.

Interviewer

What do our students do as part of the partnership with St George's Crypt?

Dr Commons

I'm incredibly proud to be working in the partnership of Leeds Beckett University with St George's Crypt, particularly because it gives our students firsthand experience of working with clients who have had real difficulties in life. And the students, in working with them, have that chance to make a real difference and produce real change in people's life and experience.

Dr Commons

As part of that partnership, we have engaged several different groups of students; occupational therapists, our physiotherapists, our sports and exercise therapists, and now our Masters in sports medicine. So the students, first of all, we inform them and they they visit and they look around and they have talks about homelessness. But more specifically, the students have been on placement there. Several of them have addressed different issues by doing their research protocols or their research projects in combination with the crypt work and the work at the Crypt.

Dr Commons

And so far, everyone's been very successful.

Interviewer

What skills and knowledge do Leeds Beckett students gain from the partnership, and how does this benefit students as they graduate and start their careers?

Dr Commons

Through this project, through this engagement, the students pick up specific skills, and they are in the conditions that we commonly see in homelessness. They might be musculoskeletal conditions, they might be skin care conditions, there are some respiratory conditions, there are a few neurological conditions that we deal with. So they get that sort of clinical exposure to people who haven't really access services. Secondly, we've got a strong emphasis on developing soft skills.

Dr Commons

So the students get exposed to a group of people for whom soft skills are extremely important. So two of our research projects really expose the fact it's not what you do, but it's how you do it. And and that was from the perspective of the recipients. So it's a really valuable opportunity to develop communication skills and gently forge in a therapeutic partnership with someone who's in a very difficult position in their life.

Dr Commons

And the students appreciate that. They appreciate the challenges. In terms of enjoying the courses, I think the students enjoy the challenge, much as they complain when the going gets tough. I think they actually enjoy the challenge of developing academically, but particularly in the health care professions, of really getting out there and being on placements in diverse types of placements, and getting that supervision to develop their skillset, which is going to give them a job.

Dr Commons

So it's that duality of academic development, but alongside really robust clinical placements. And of course we're bang in the job corridor in Leeds, Sheffield, Harrogate, Bradford, Doncaster. We're in the job corridor and they're getting experience in centres of excellence which will stand them in good stead for going forward in their careers.

[Break]

Interviewer

And now we're back in the studio with Dr. Philomena Commons, who is discussing the partnership between Leeds Beckett University and St George's Crypt. What are the misconceptions about homeless people and what should we do to challenge our biases and misconceptions?

Dr Commons

Well, there are several misconceptions about homeless people. We tend to label them, and in actual fact, they are completely individuals with their own social backgrounds. There are some commonalities, like the reasons for becoming homelessness, but they are quite diverse. So one of the misconceptions is that they're just... it's their own fault. They're on the street. It's their own fault that this has happened to them.

Dr Commons

Whereas if you look at their backgrounds, they've often made some difficult decisions, they've made some wrong decisions, but all those decisions have got consequences. And when they haven't had a very good set of coping skills. Some of those challenges they faced are really quite horrendous. And there are commonalities, like many of them have been under some kind of social institution in their childhood.

Dr Commons

Some of them have been in the Army and problems with reintegration. There's a strong history of family breakdown, but they're problems that for many of us we've managed to cope with. But for some of us, that's been more difficult and ended in homelessness. So we really need to understand the individual and their social context to understand why this particular problem has occurred for them.

Dr Commons

And that's really one of the things that we try to teach our students. You know, don't don't go in with misconception you don't label people before you really uncover what's behind that. We know that homelessness can happen to anybody. Increasingly so in the social context, we find ourselves at the moment and the students have realised that showing respect and working in a caring and compassionate sense is therapeutic in and of itself.

Dr Commons

So that's a great lesson to learn for our health care students.

Interviewer

How did the pandemic and the national lockdowns affect homeless people living on the streets.

Dr Commons

During the COVID, they actually took over an entire hotel with over 100 rooms and they had a kind of a round up of everybody on the streets, and the next thing they've got a room and an en suite bathroom. So because the government came on board and recognised the difficulties of street homeless during COVID, they actually started bringing in the hiring, and that was actually continued. When the government came on board and showed that we can do something about it because we have to suddenly we're hiring hotels, you know.

Interviewer

And how important is the combination of clinical practise and the social side of care for our students?

Dr Commons

Well, we know that health is social, isn't it? Health is totally social. There are so many things about people's social positioning that impact their health. Homelessness breeds ill health and ill health breeds homelessness. We know that you can't make a division between the social factors and health care. The social models of health care are really something that we teach the students because it is of paramount importance. It's not just about fixing the body.

Dr Commons

There are many things about a person's circumstances that we can speak into and address, and we can help to signpost to services that will help them in a more holistic sense than just fixing the body, which of course, important as it is, the students understand. And also we promote that understanding that it's just one part of being a healthy adult or an healthy child with a healthy family.

Interviewer

What does the future hold for the partnership between Leeds Beckett University and St George's Crypt?

Dr Commons

So our partnership with the Crypt continues to grow and grow. So it's not just physiotherapy students that are involved, but our occupational therapy students, and sports and exercise therapy students, and more recently are masters students in sports medicine are constructing their research projects in partnership with the crypt. So it's growing and growing. St George's Crypt as a project is really developing itself.

Dr Commons

It's just opened a new centre which has 33 flats for homeless individual people and families. And the outside of that, in the garden area, it's got a big exercise area. It's also moved because of COVID to accommodating everybody individually. Now these changes and these growth in the crypt have actually opened up for us more opportunities to engage with those families and those individuals who are in those positions.

Dr Commons

And for example, just now we're looking at how we can work with them and looking at the link between developing fitness and recovery from addiction. So we're looking at how we can engage with them with our skills to benefit their 12-step-programme of recovery from addiction. And these are exciting developments that hopefully, where the students will benefit greatly, but also the projects will appreciate that.

Dr Commons

And it will become part of their programmes.

Interviewer

Thank you for joining me today, Dr. Phil Commons. It was a great insight into the important work you and students are doing in supporting the local homeless community through St George's crypt.