Wellness Project helps Residents with their Health & Wellbeing
Housing Association Golding Homes are working with DayOne Wellness on a new pilot project to help tackle health inequality in Maidstone.
Local resident Sherry Johnson is very clear about why she signed up for the DayOne Wellness programme, being run at the Fusion Healthy Living Centre in Park Wood.
“I don’t want to die young like my mum did,” the 35-year-old mum of three explained simply. “That’s why I am determined to do everything I can to stay as healthy as I can.”
That determination to change her whole approach to life rather than just worrying about her weight made her an ideal candidate for the wellness programme being funded by Golding Vision, the community arm of Golding Homes.
The programme combines outdoor physical activity with what it describes as ‘behavioural change coaching’ aimed at helping people “reverse and prevent many of the lifestyle diseases that are currently restricting them from living long, healthy, happy lives“.
Golding Vision has funded 12 places for local residents to attend the 12-week pilot course. Course members had to apply formally and be accepted on to the course by DayOne co-founder Pip Lawrence, who selected those who would most benefit from the opportunity.
Each session is made up on an hour of discussion and learning around a particular aspect of wellbeing, followed by an hour of outdoor exercise.
Week five saw the attentive classmates focusing on quality sleep, something which was of particular interest to Kerrie Thompson (pictured above), who as the mother of two very young children, would like more of it.
The session gave course members handy hints such as not drinking coffee after 2pm, not eating too late and going to bed when their bodies told them they needed to sleep, not when they decided it was justifiably bedtime.
The pilot will finish in April, after 12 weeks, and will cover topics including nutrients vs calories, time mastery, minimum daily movement requirements, and resilience.