““I am so grateful to Claire and Lee and will always try to support ‘Muddy Care’ in any way that I can, as I know how imperative it is that it continues and how many people would benefit greatly from being part of it!””
Muddy Care isn’t just a service for people with chronic conditions. It is about working as a collective towards positively changing all aspects of health and wellness for people with chronic conditions. It is about changing the way people with chronic conditions manage and see their chronic condition(s), how they aspire and create a more positive present for themselves and ultimately their futures. It is a celebration of resilience and rooted within everything Muddy Care does, is care for one another, compassion, respect and trust.
But Muddy Care is also hopefully changing the way people who do not have a chronic condition(s) see people with chronic conditions, both their challenges and struggles but also their strengths, courage and positivity. Because the reality is, until education, support and understanding improves for people with chronic conditions, from people who do not have chronic condition(s), the challenges continue.
Muddy Care Pilot Scheme - Participants
We were in Phase 4 of 5 of our mini-pilot study when our outdoor learning and activity rehabilitation days had to be suspended because of COVID-19. Please have a look at our blogs from the mini-pilot study, all written by the participants to see what we have been doing since September 2019. The link is at the end of this page.
Immediately as the outdoor learning and activity rehabilitation programme was suspended, the participants took the lead on our COVID-19 support and care project, to help those with chronic conditions during lockdown and beyond. Muddy Care continues to make lemonade out of lemons and as a community we are stronger than ever and working collaboratively and cooperatively in the best sense of the terms. Please have a look at our COVID-19 support project through the link below.
Muddy Care is a professional outdoor education and learning rehabilitation programme, written, delivered and evaluated by professional outdoor education professionals. Outdoor education, teaching and learning pedagogy is imbedded throughout the rehabilitation programme but Muddy Care is not successful just because it is an excellent example of an outdoor education rehabilitation programme. It is much more than that. It is authentic and real in how it provides teaching and learning opportunities to the real struggles people face living with chronic conditions.
Having someone who is a professional outdoor education teacher, a retired elite sports person and a sufferer of serious chronic conditions has been one of the dominant reasons for the success of Muddy Care. All three experiences, though not unique in themselves, when interweaved together, produce a programme that is unique, innovative, professional and written from the heart from a journey of extreme pain, suffering, loss and one that has been life-changing.
“As it was developed by a wonderful woman, who unfortunately has several chronic conditions herself, it is delivered very well. Not only because of her lovely cheery, positive personality, but also the fact the she has a professional teaching background. I admire her because she is a true inspiration!”
Bringing added value to the Muddy Care education programme are the tools we introduce throughout the educational programme. They have either been devised directly and tested by Claire, a professional teacher and expert chronic conditions sufferer 😊 and if she hasn’t devised the tools, she has tried and tested them, tweaked them to suit ‘us folk’ (the chronically ill) and she is always honest about how they have worked for her. They are creative, fun, relevant, useful and in some cases, lifechanging (as Muddy Care has been told). These tools have been developed by Claire over eight and a half years of being ill and backed up with eight and half years of research too. Muddy Care always adds the science to our tools and I think that is essential as a professional education programme.
Muddy Care is written and co-delivered by someone experiencing the full spectrum of the chronic conditions’ journey. Somethings can only come from experience. No book, no research thesis can provide that authentic experience. And that’s why Muddy Care connects so superbly to those with chronic conditions. Muddy Care’s origin and evolvement is genuine and real which forms trust with the participants. The added value of direct experience is invaluable and is what raises the game for Muddy Care. However, Lee, the co-education leader with Claire, has been fundamental to the success of our educational rehabilitation programme. Muddy Care knew Lee would operate at the highest of professional standards but would also be great interpersonally with us ‘the chronically challenged.’ Lee hasn’t been just great. He has been absolutely brilliant. Lee and Claire work superbly as a professional education team. They know when to lead and when to follow and have the fullest respect for one another. That is why having the right people is critical to a project’s success. However, what we want to do now is for you to hear the testimonials from the participants. This link is also below.
When we asked for testimonials from our Muddy Care participants, we were expecting a couple of sentences perhaps. What we got in return, as you will see for yourselves, is so much more. Muddy Care has proved that a professional outdoor educational programme, with the needs of the chronic condition community at the heart of everything it does, is without doubt an excellent and highly effective form of holistic health and wellbeing rehabilitation. The testimonials were written without any influence from Lee or Claire.
So where are we going? From strength to strength I am pleased to say. We are working towards strategies and adjusting our operating procedures accordingly to enable us to finish the mini-pilot study when the right circumstances present themselves. Our advisory board has become very active and with the exception of Lee, only includes people with chronic conditions. Our Muddy participants when they graduate from our mini-pilot study will have the opportunity to become ‘Muddy liaison officers’ working on our proposed short course rehabilitation programmes and other Muddy projects (please watch the Muddy Care website). In 2021, we are also hoping to work with people who have developed long term health conditions from COVID-19. Yes in 2021, we aim to be delivering a variety of short rehabilitation courses to those with chronic conditions who cannot or who don’t want to commit to the long-term rehabilitation programme. We are also in the early developmental phases of consultation in running a mid-term rehabilitation pilot study, allowing us to create a sound scientific proof of concept.
Muddy Care is building sound, positive working relationships with several medical and health organisations and professionals in South Wales, including two teaching hospitals. Collaboration and cooperation with the health and medical sectors has and is a key objective of Muddy Care and from the very beginning, working and helping the NHS was a key aim. Have a read and if you haven’t already, open up your mind that rehabilitation programmes can be delivered by other organisations outside of the health and medical sector with extreme success and outcomes that some health and medical professionals said to Claire were unrealistic. With the help of funding from the Welsh Government Rural Communities - Rural Development Programme 2014-2020, the Brecon Beacons Natural Park Sustainable Development Fund and The National Lottery, Muddy Care has made ‘unrealistic’ realisable…
“I literally cannot thank Muddy Care enough, ever. Muddy Care has given me a fantastic group of friends for support and helped me accept and manage my conditions. I had spent 4 long years in a very dark depression, my life was going down a very dark path. Muddy Care has literally given me a life worth living. I will be forever grateful.”