Recognising patient experience through poetry
'Everything will be OK'
A collaboration between the Children's Hearing Centre
(St Michael's Hospital) and Beth Calverley, Poet in Residence
(University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation
Trust)
Families and staff members in the Children's Hearing Centre have
generously shared their experiences to be transformed into
beautiful co-created poetry.
Four volunteers described their journeys as family members of a
baby or child with a permanent hearing loss, including unilateral
hearing loss, bilateral hearing loss, and different severities of
deafness including profound hearing loss.
Staff members also shared their feelings and experiences of
supporting families throughout their childhood years, from the
moment they find out about their children's hearing loss.
Beth hosted a gentle conversation with each person. They were
free to share as much or as little as they wished. She wove their
words into a poem, live in the moment, and invited each co-creator
to shape the poem as they wished.
Some sessions took place in person while others took place via
phone/video call.
Each person received the original typewritten poem to keep as a
memento of their experience.
Beth told us she had found the sessions deeply inspiring:
"Looking back at the poems and sessions, I feel a wave of privilege
to have spent time with family members, listening to their
experiences. They expressed many emotions: shock, worry,
uncertainty, guilt, connection, pride, love, joy. Throughout the
poems, there's a thread of trusting intuition, tuning into a deeper
rhythm, and finding creative ways to connect with the world. These
connections seem all the brighter for it."
Feedback from different parents:
"Taking part in the poetry session was really useful to me. It
gave me the opportunity to pause and reflect on how I felt at the
beginning of our journey with hearing loss and how I feel now. I
had a jumble of feelings and emotions around finding out that my
daughter had hearing loss and in the time since. In the session,
being asked questions in a structured way and my answers being
summarised, gave me clarity on how I was feeling, how far we have
come and the positive future that I now look forward to for my
daughter."
"It was really therapeutic to look back at my experiences. I
hadn't ever stopped and taken stock of my and my child's journey.
It felt so special to end up with a poem at the end of it that
means so much to me and my child".
"It was a really useful opportunity to reflect and to notice how
far we have come since our child being identified as being
deaf."
"It's been a lovely way to summarise our journey"
"I was listened to and I got a poem out of it. The fact a
clinician sat in and listened as well meant she got to hear how
difficult it is for parents, and that is so beneficial. Beth made
it easy to do. I didn't need to come up with anything beyond what
come naturally."
With each family's permission, their poems are shared below for
other families to read, offering a sense of what the future may
hold.
Expression -
Catherine
Gut-feeling -
Juliet
Turning
Heads - Jessica
Finding Out
- Hannah
You can also listen to the poems below:
Expression -
Catherine
Gut-feeling -
Juliet
Turning
Heads - Jessica
Finding Out -
Hannah
