The Compassionate Frome Project a.k.a. Health Connections Mendip
“Across the country, and across the world, people of good heart and goodwill are quietly working on imaginative projects to improve the quality of their own lives, the lives of those around them, and the world in which they live. Many such initiatives happen in relatively obscure places through the actions of ordinary people outside the usual centres of power who are motivated by that active concern for others which is the hallmark of compassion. Beyond the immediate benefits accruing from their work, those small committed groups may, consciously or unconsciously, be preparing the ground for radical change in the way society as a whole conducts its affairs. They are, in a real sense, encouraging us all to be more fully human.”
What is it: A different way of responding to the modern life ailments that present themselves at the doctor’s office, this experiment in connection as a remedy in the rural town of Frome has lessons for us all and has now been captured in the book The Compassionate Project: A Case for Hope & Humankindness from the Town that Beat Loneliness by Dr. Julian Abel and Lindsay Clarke.
What you need to know: People show up at their GP for reasons that go beyond the realm of medicine —social isolation amongst the elderly, loss of motivation due to developing an illness, fear stemming from changes in environment or lifestyle, a loss of self-esteem following a career or relationship shift — but they are often looking for an antidote that lies more in the realm of compassion.
Led by Dr. Helen Kingston, a GP in Frome’s Medical Practice, and Jenny Hartnoll, a local community development worker, the Compassionate Frome Project makes connections between people who need something to help their situation and the existing community resources that might respond to that need. Where gaps in initiatives exist, Health Connections Mendip develops new ones with the local community. The project has also established supportive infrastructure (such as arranging lifts and even accompanying clients shy of going alone) where there were issues of access.
Between 2013 and 2017, the Compassionate Frome Project led to a reduction in the rate of ER emergencies across the town by 15% at a moment when the county of Somerset in which Frome is located registered an increase of 30%.
Why you’ll love it: Those ten minutes you get with your doctor start to look very different within this model. Rather than prescribing a cure for loneliness, sadness, anxiety, or loss in the form of pills, another avenue is opened up that leads into the community, into interest groups, into motivations and connections of a different sort.
Why we think it's different: What we put into our lives — just as with food — has impacts on how we are able to live those lives. We now know that the quality of our social connections affects our health. Chronic loneliness increases by 20% the risk of early death. Good social relationships have been found to have more positive impacts on hypertension than medication, reduce inflammation, and minimize the risk of death more effectively than “losing weight, improving diet, and stopping smoking or drinking.” As authors Abel & Cole note in their book: “Though we identify ourselves as individuals, we actually live in the plural. We are interdependent beings cared for by the people around us who form those networks of relationship that provide us with support, companionship, and the basic necessities of life.”
The Compassionate Project has become a model for how we can improve our own situations by reaching out to the community around us and how we can attempt to resolve some of the modern conditions that are on the rise such as our sense of isolation, a growing lack of purpose, and a pervasive unease at our uncertain world, together. This idea is gaining ground: A Compassionate City Charter is being developed by the Welsh government and has been adopted by the towns of Plymouth and Inverclyde in the UK.
Something to do inspired by this project: Care for relationships in your life. Often we skim over the people in our lives, and invest our time elsewhere, like our careers or Netflix. Spend 15 minutes each day talking to someone you care about (from one of our favorite thinkers Dr. Vivek Murthy); write a letter, text, or WhatsApp message to someone you may have neglected; say hello to someone on your walk; put the phone away in the queue when you collect take-out or coffee, be aware of those around you. Even causal interactions impact how we feel and can lighten our days.
