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Men’s Health Forum Scotland

Update

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Key developments

• Funding from Scottish Government• Topic-based workplan • MHFS 10k for Men • Men’s Jogging Network• White Ribbon Campaign Scotland • Consultation in National Programmes• Self Management for Men Project

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Funding from Scottish Government

• Ongoing financial pressures

• Detailed discussions with SGHD

• Comprehensive workplan

• Funding secured until March 2011

• Ongoing fundraising

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Topic-based workplan

• Cancer

• Obesity

• Mental wellbeing, health and suicide

• Young men and violence

• Other topics: CHD, alcohol, smoking, diabetes, physical activity, domestic abuse, fatherhood, access to services

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MHFS 10k for Men

• Expanding event

• Men’s Health Forum Scotland as beneficiary

• Developing partnerships

• Raise public profile of the event and the organisation

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Men’s Jogging Network

• Continues to expand

• Working with jogScotland to promote

• Continued training of Jog Leaders

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White Ribbon Campaign Scotland

• New website

• Funding for one year to employ full time co-ordinator

• New Steering Group established

• Working towards further autonomy

• Continued work with women’s organisations

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Ongoing core activities

• Capacity building• Information provision• Networking and communication• Website• Printed resources• Community engagement• National Men’s Health Week• Partnership working - Scotland, UK, international

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Consultation in national programmes

• AAA screening programme

• Bowel screening programme

• NHS Health Scotland

• Scottish Government

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Men, masculinity and long term conditions

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Self Management for Men Project

• Self management fund for Scotland - £4.2m

• Long Term Conditions Alliance Scotland (LTCAS)

• Successful application for funding - £250k over 2 years

• New project launching January 2010

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Strategic Aim

“To increase the capacity of all agencies in Scotland supporting self management to engage with men and respond to the specific needs of men, through improved awareness of the impact of masculinity and gender on self management.”

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What is “self management”?

• Self management is a person-centred approach in which the individual is empowered and has ownership over the management of their life and conditions.

• The role of health and social care professionals, services and treatment is to support the person’s journey towards living well in the presence or absence of symptoms.

• The approach must be properly resourced.

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Supporting aims: increased capacity through knowledge and understanding

• To increase understanding amongst service providers, practitioners and carers of how men relate and respond to long term conditions, and

• how men access support for self management, and the barriers that men sometimes face.

• To increase understanding of men’s needs as people being cared for, and as carers.

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Increased capacity through improved service design and delivery

• To increase the capacity of agencies to engage effectively with men, and ensure their services respond to identified needs.

• To improve access to services for men to support them in successful and positive self management.

• To increase the capacity of service providers and practitioners to engage in a positive way with the broader equality and diversity agenda.

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Why is there a need for this work?

From our experience and understanding, there is currently:

• an invisibility of specific work to ensure men’s needs are understood and met

• a lack of attention in service provision to the specific barriers faced by men

• a lack of available data relating men’s needs concerning self management and long term conditions.

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What we don’t know…

“There is currently a lack of specific knowledge and understanding of how men self manage long term conditions. There is little research available, particularly research focusing on Scotland. The information that is available is mainly quantitative in nature and gives little insight beyond how many men are affected by specific conditions.”

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What will the new project deliver?

• Training• Consultancy and advice• Written resources and toolkits• Website• Seminars and networking opportunities• Research• Major conference• Work to highlight broader equality and diversity

agenda

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What we do know…

• Serious illness and long term conditions have a serious impact on men’s lives

• This impact is often closely related to masculine roles, and individual capacity to fulfill these roles and perceived responsibilities

• The impact can be far reaching and enduring

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Current research

"Standing out from the herd": men renegotiating masculinity in relation to their experience of illnessInternational Journal of Men's Health, 2007 by Rosaleen O'Brien, Graham J. Hart, Kate Hunt

“It's caveman stuff, but that is to a certain extent how guys still operate”: men's accounts of masculinity and help seekingRosaleen O'Brien, Kate Hunt, Graham J Hart, 2005, MRC Glasgow

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About the research

• “Standing out from the herd” investigates whether a mental illness (i.e., depression) presents different challenges to masculinity than those experienced in relation to a stereotypically male disease (i.e., coronary heart disease) and a gender-specific disease (i.e., prostate cancer).

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Standing out from the herd

• “after the recognition of their heart problem, these men were faced with the need to make immediate changes in their lifestyle, the most challenging of which was giving up physical tasks and work. It was, however, difficult to accept a prolonged challenge to their masculinity and participants set about working toward the recovery of their masculinity as much as they worked toward the recovery of their health.”

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Standing out from the herd

• Prostate cancer• “Arguably, their quest for knowledge was a key

strategy in seeking to claim back some of the power they had lost because of their illness. It was clear that their diagnosis created great uncertainties and had made their once unchallenged, orderly lives chaotic. Their "education in prostate cancer" was one means of making sense of the losses they had had to endure.”

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Standing out from the herd

• Prostate cancer• “Men suffering from prostate cancer found

it much more challenging to try and recapture the aspects of masculinity they felt had been lost through illness. They had experienced multiple challenges to their masculinity, including the loss of work, social life, and ability to perform sexually”

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Standing out from the herd

• Prostate cancer• Certainly the language participants in this study used

("taken away from me"; "cut off"; "guillotined") suggests that they felt their masculinity had been mutilated and curtailed permanently by prostate cancer and its

treatment. Despite the obvious effects this had on their identities as men, participants seemed to conclude that a potentially terminal illness made them feel that they "stood out from the herd" more than the feelings of loss of masculinity that they reported.

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Standing out from the herd

• Depression• …he tried to get the group to explore the

possibility that there are disadvantages to being masculine if it means being denied support. This comment was met with the following response:

• Ross: There's just something in our make-up that you just don't talk to other guys about it.

• Tony: Aye, well, if it's total lads they're going to rip the pish out of you for it, anyway.

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Standing out from the herd

• From conclusions:

• In line with other research, our findings show that the losses men experience through illness can reveal what men think masculinity is and expose the practices of masculinity that participants engaged in prior to their illness (Chapple & Ziebland, 2002).

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Caveman stuff

• Steve: “You don’t like to make a fuss because it’s a macho thing just to say you’re being the strong silent type…You’ll endure it, you can take it. So if there is something wrong you won’t talk to anyone about it. You have to be bed-ridden or half dead before you go (to the doctor’s).”

• RO: “Why would you leave it until that stage?”• Steve: “That’s what being a man is”• Ross: “Aye you can’t describe it. But most guys

are like that”

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Caveman stuff

• Rory: “I broke my thumb and it took me two days before I went to see the doctor…It was going septic, going green and purple and black and I was like ‘I’m not going to bother them’”

• Jake: “I think that’s just a male trait”

• Nathan: “ Aye it’s (puts on deep voice) ‘I am man the hunter’. I think it’s that”

• Rory: “I don’t even think it’s that…It’s just I couldnae go to the doctor’s with that”

• Nathan: “If a woman cut themselves they’d be away to the doctor. A guy’d be like ‘I’ll just go and get myself a bit of Sellotape and wrap it up”

• Rory: “Aye. Ah put on a bit of tape and carried on”

• Nathan: “That’s just a man thing though isn’t it?”

• Rory: “Aye that’s just a man thing. “I’m hard, I’m daft, I’ll cut my arm off and just grow another one back”

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In conclusion…

• Masculinity is inextricably linked with men’s experience of illness.

• Complex dynamics work on how men view themselves, how they are viewed by those close to them, and how men perceive those views of others.

• Illness can be closely associated with loss (of masculinity)

• Men can and will adopt a range of strategies to cope.

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And finally…

• By better understanding the relationships between personal and societal views of masculinity, illness, health, seeking support, accessing information and the needs of individual men, we can have a significant impact on the health experience of men in Scotland.