Linked with the County wide Health Referral Programme Derbyshire have a number of Health Trainers who support and motivate clients to sustain their physical activity levels.

Each scheme has a Health Trainer attached to it and participants who need a little extra help can use the expertise of a Health Trainer to keep them on track and also to help provide new ideas of new activities to take part in.

Here are just two people's stories of how they worked with a Health Trainer and stayed active

Lily was referred to Alfreton Leisure Centre onto Health Referral to help with her depression.  She said that after having personal problems, she felt ‘trapped’.  Helen met up with Lily and had 1 to 1 meetings to look at healthier eating and setting targets and goals.  Previously, she thought there was no way out of how she was feeling and her self esteem was low.  She had health problems,  low confidence and she felt trapped in her circumstances.  Through working with Helen, Lily said “it has opened opportunities to look at me moving forward”.  She says that she is so happy she met with Helen and feels sure that if she hadn’t, she wouldn’t  have felt motivated enough to continue with Health referral programme. 

Lily is still having PHP (personal health planning) sessions with Helen and her goal is to lose weight by making small changes.  The intervention with the Health Trainer has given her a ‘boost’ and motivated her with a goal to work to, and to become healthier.  Lily states it “feels like a light at the end of the tunnel” and Helen’s support has been on mental, emotional and physical levels.  Lily is now going on to try other activities such as Aqua jog and is encouraging her sister on health referral and engaging with the

Lily feels she is now back in society and would like to help other people to become healthier and has therefore signed-up to become a volunteer Health Champion.  She can now relate to other people on Health Referral and is ideal to support others.  She plans to help to motivate, support and signpost others and buddy them to activities and will be part of the whole Health Trainer team for physical activity.

Eileen is retired lady who is on health referral and attends Health Referral at Alfreton Leisure Centre.

Eileen was referred to the gym for back problems and was heading towards high blood pressure and had a sedentary lifestyle. She had always ‘exercised her mind’ and kept mentally active but she said she never thought about it being equally important to exercise her body until now!   The only activity she did was walking donkeys on a voluntary basis. Helen contacted Eileen as she had stopped attending and she met with Helen to work out a way forward.

In the past Eileen had lots of responsibility with her family and home. Helen began to work with her and encouraged her to attend.  They met on a weekly basis and Helen helped her work on a personal health plan with goals around healthy eating. Eileen was surprised there was someone there to help her get through the programme, as she has always had to do things on her own!    Eileen commented that Helen pointed out things to her that she would not have noticed and by doing this it had given her confidence and a new direction in life.  She commented that she and others on health referral can’t believe the Health Trainer Service is FREE!

Eileen can’t swim but because of her new found confidence she was able to do aqua jog with Helen buddying her to first session. Eileen says she previously would not have had the courage and now she loves aqua jog.  She is now going to be taking up 12 free swimming lessons at the centre, unaccompanied and she wants to learn to swim in her back.

Eileen states her lung capacity has improved and she now has more energy.  As she is coming to the end of her programme she is now looking at starting swimming, continuing with the gym and is looking into attending ‘Healthy Heart’ class.  Eileen says “Helen’s support has been amazing and she helped me come back to the gym and move forward.  I now have more confidence and even volunteered to appear in the leaflet.  I also want older people to be aware that the Health Trainer Service and Health Referral Programme are appropriate for them and that age is no barrier to access.”

Helen is continuing to support her to make changes in her healthy eating regime to help her achieve her goal to lose weight and continue to improve her health and wellbeing.  Eileen has been so inspired by the project that she is now looking to become a ‘Health Champion’ on the Health Trainer project and to support others on Health Referral.