Mum from Southsea creates app to help struggling NHS workers

Jennifer Sanchez, from Southsea, is launching a new app to help people deal with mental health issues brought on by working on the front-line throughout the pandemic.

The mum-of-three runs empowerment workshops and coaches people who are struggling mentally to take care of their mental wellbeing.

Jennifer, 35 said: ‘After being asked to deliver empowerment classes by several nurses from the NHS, one of whom even offered to pay for her whole team, I decided something had to be done.

‘Since Covid, the nurses and NHS staff have been working at full capacity, sometimes without stopping to drink or eat or even have a wee and lots have been off with kidney stones. They may be our superheroes, but they are not superhuman.

‘As a result, mental health has been affected. Because the services and managers are so stretched, supervision and offloading to your team seems like more work, so I have made an app and promised to hold an offload Zoom session once a fortnight as part of the membership.’

Jennifer has written a course to meet the biggest pain points that arose again and again and has collaborated with Thrive Academy to provide the management and leaders of the NHS suitable and realistic ways to support self-care and encourage and a nurturing environment.

The app, which is called Community Lounge App – or CLAPP for short – is £1 per month as a six-month pilot and in the app.

People can also pay it forward by sponsoring a member of NHS staff and buying a yearly membership on their behalf.

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Jennifer added: ‘Their time is so restricted that any self-care is perceived as a frivolity. Their status as superheroes has led to a culture of not even eating or drinking on a shift and believing that when things get hard that they need to suck it up and carry on.

‘This culture of putting everyone else first is what attracted many of them to their field but has also meant that they are running on empty.

‘For our NHS staff to look after the general public we need them to not only not only to look after themselves but to celebrate it without guilt.’

To download go to thelibertylounge.com/nhs-community-lounge-app/

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

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