What most people believe about pain isn’t the full picture. Scientists have learnt a lot more about how pain works over the past 50 years, but very little of this knowledge has filtered down.Knowing more about how pain works has been proven to change the way people see and treat long-term pain: it can reduce the fear around it and can even change how pain feels. This could make an overwhelming difference to people suffering.More than 28 million people in the UK are affected by long-term (sometimes called ‘chronic’ or ‘persistent’) pain, pain that has lasted longer than 3 months. It’s often a daily struggle: but we're here to help.Flippin’ Pain is a public health movement that shares the latest science of pain with the people who need it the most. Working with commissioners and people living with long-term pain themselves, we create resources and free, fun, informative events to explain the (often surprising) science behind why we hurt.We deliver an engaging approach known as ‘pain science education’, demonstrating the importance of not just the biological influences on pain, but the key psychological and social factors that have influence as well. Endorsed by the British Pain Society and the European Pain Federation, Flippin’ Pain is aimed at both public and professional audiences, engaging, educating and empowering everyone who is involved in the journey. Better self-management can reduce reliance on services as well as risky medication and surgery: but healthcare design doesn’t always reflect the latest understanding of pain. Flippin’ Pain therefore arms professionals with the confidence and tools to achieve better outcomes. There’s even evidence that a ‘flipped’ understanding of pain could help to prevent people from having long-term pain in the future.As they say, knowledge is power: and this knowledge empowers people to take back control and re-engage with their recovery, bringing new hope to millions.

The Public Health team at Stockport Council has a wide remit and is responsible for delivering and/or commissioning a broad range of support and services connected to health and wellbeing. My role in the team involves supporting a number of key initiatives with community strategy and delivery: these include adult's mental health and wellbeing, mental health in education, warm spaces, age friendly support and suicide prevention.During my time in the role, I have developed our communications from the ground up, producing reports and evaluation on current workings, and producing comprehensive strategies in response. I have developed new tracking and reporting systems for communications performance, a new distribution list for local resources, and introduced regular and consistent engagement sessions with residents and key partners. I have led the production of the Stockport '5 Ways to Feel Good' campaign from scratch, supporting key messaging, design, web and multimedia content development, engagement and message distribution. Highlights of my time so far have involved producing the 5 Ways to Feel Good campaign, developing new partnerships with community and health organisations, supporting GMCA with their gambling awareness campaign, launching the first ever Stockport Children's Mental Health Awareness Week, coproducing resources with young people themselves, and distributing over 26,000 resources to partners.

As the charity of Leeds Teaching Hospitals, Leeds Hospitals Charity supports NHS staff to deliver the best care for over a million patients and their families each year. Working with local communities, schools and businesses across the city and beyond, each year the team provides £5 million in additional funding for Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust.My role involved managing a great communications team, developing a strong identity and narrative for the rebrand of the charity, producing marketing strategies for many different areas of the charity (for example the new Leeds Hospitals Charity Lottery, legacy campaign and retail offer), events marketing and development of partner initiatives, including #HelloMyNameIs.Highlights of my time at the charity include supporting the launch of the first two Leeds Hospitals Charity Shops, overseeing a successful first Leeds Parks Challenge, and contributing to the redesign of the Children's Hospital entrance, as well as developing our relationships with staff across the Trust.

Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust is one of only four dedicated children’s hospital trusts in the UK and provides integrated healthcare for children and young people, including community and mental health care as well as acute and specialist services.My role at Sheffield Children's involved being part of a creative team that supported the work of the 3,000 amazing NHS heroes that worked there. This included everything from developing dynamic top-level strategies, producing weekly updates, introducing new channels and engagement mechanisms, project management, media liaison, content generation including photography, graphic design, web and film, as well as a focus on improving accessibility, diversity and inclusivity.During my time at the Children's, I achieved the highest staff flu jab rate on record, the highest Staff Survey response on record, led on the first virtual awards ceremony, introduced the NHS Rainbow Badge scheme and staff engagement groups, along with providing a significant and ever-changing response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The amazing staff at Yorkshire Ambulance Service serve a population of over five million people across Yorkshire and the Humber and strive to ensure that patients receive the right response to their care needs as quickly as possible, wherever they live.My secondment at YAS involved the co-ordination of campaigns, content creation and engagement (with the public, stakeholders, and staff). Highlights of my time in the role include working on the Tour de Yorkshire coverage, working with the YAS Twitter Champions (a group of passionate paramedics) and developing a comprehensive social media strategy for the future.

NHS Sheffield CCG was an organisation responsible for planning and buying many of Sheffield’s healthcare services. This included hospital care, as well as services people receive within a community setting (for example community and district nurses) and supported the 81 GP practices around the city.In the role of Communications Assistant, I work in three key areas: internal communications, member communications (with our GP practices and other commissioned services) and communications with the public. To support these areas, I worked to develop multimedia content, and find new and innovative ways to deliver high quality and efficiency. My daily responsibilities included, but weren't limited to, working with the media, management of social media channels and web outputs, development of bulletins and co-ordination of large public campaigns.

Bauer Media UK reaches over 25 million consumers across multiple brands, including heat, KISS, Grazia, Empire, Kerrang, Heat, Q, Magic and Absolute Radio. In an era where audiences are ever harder to categorise, Bauer aims to build strong cultural connections, drawing people together with the things that they really care about. As Performance Marketing Executive, I worked to establish brands and create revenue for a number of Bauer enterprises. Daily communications activity involved email marketing to a database of over 250,000 people, managing social media for BCN station accounts, and designing promotional content, monthly campaigns, and the popular ‘Spinner Winner’ competitions.

The School of Education is home to a diverse and welcoming academic community with students from all over the world, which I was proud to help support. My role involved the co-ordination, smooth running and promotion surrounding official events, such as Open Days, Graduation Ceremonies and Conferences. The role required management of staff/volunteers, knowledge of Microsoft CRM, effective advertising, budgeting and hospitality systems, as well as the implementation of evaluative practice. These duties supplemented my existing responsibilities in Marketing and Communications, including filmmaking, graphic design, printed collateral production, social media management and collation of analytics.

The University of Sheffield is a remarkable place to work and contribute to their position as one of the top 100 universities in the world, renowned for excellence, impact and distinctiveness of its research-led learning and teaching.My role involved the implementation of videography, photography, graphic design and marketing strategy to promote University programmes. Responsibilities involved filming and editing promotional videos, the creation and management of print, the direction and delivery of social media strategies, and the compilation of analytics. I was happy to be offered a promotion and extension to my contract after my internship was completed.