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The DESMOND experience!

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This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.
There were two facilitators, one was a nurse that I have known a long time, she covered the medical side of things and was great, clearly knew her stuff and had a lovely inclusive manner with everyone, important as the range of knowledge in the group was limited. The other was a young nutritionist, the food advice was bland and didn’t really give any ideas about how to adapt your diet, the focus was on how much sugar was in various foods, very little on carbs other than we should have some with every meal (!!), that came with the 5 fruit a day advice including grapes. My issue with what she said about the forum was that it was an ignorant remark, she had never looked at the forum and made the remark in a tone of a teacher to a naughty child. I work in adult learning and development, I am responsible for the quality of materials and those delivering, a good facilitator could have called the whole groups attention to say that a good point had been raised so let’s talk about it, support and information is great but it’s good to remember that it is personal experience......then explained how to best manage that...truth was she had a text book knowledge of a diabetic diet with a one size fits all attitude.
I will be emailing the nurse that I know next week with constructive feedback, I needed the weekend in between so I could be sure I wasn’t giving an emotional reaction.
 
Ralph-YK said:
We are out there. I have met fellow D's in other places. There are groups on other forums and IM apps for Diabetics.
It doesn't help when hcp are against us getting info. My dietician told me not to come here as it just confused me!
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Yes I agree with that Ralph.
 
CathyB said:
There were two facilitators, one was a nurse that I have known a long time, she covered the medical side of things and was great, clearly knew her stuff and had a lovely inclusive manner with everyone, important as the range of knowledge in the group was limited. The other was a young nutritionist, the food advice was bland and didn’t really give any ideas about how to adapt your diet, the focus was on how much sugar was in various foods, very little on carbs other than we should have some with every meal (!!), that came with the 5 fruit a day advice including grapes. My issue with what she said about the forum was that it was an ignorant remark, she had never looked at the forum and made the remark in a tone of a teacher to a naughty child. I work in adult learning and development, I am responsible for the quality of materials and those delivering, a good facilitator could have called the whole groups attention to say that a good point had been raised so let’s talk about it, support and information is great but it’s good to remember that it is personal experience......then explained how to best manage that...truth was she had a text book knowledge of a diabetic diet with a one size fits all attitude.
I will be emailing the nurse that I know next week with constructive feedback, I needed the weekend in between so I could be sure I wasn’t giving an emotional reaction.
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That’s a really good summary Cathy. And great that you have given yourself some space to let the emotions die down and can offer constructive thoughts which may well actually hit home and affect the way the facilitator handles the same situation in the future.
 
CathyB said:
made the remark in a tone of a teacher to a naughty child. I work in adult learning and development, I am responsible for the quality of materials and those delivering, a good facilitator could have called the whole groups attention to say that a good point had been raised so let’s talk about it
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I so agree with what you say Cathy. The course I went on was run on similar lines to the one you attended and it came over as very much as a teacher/pupil relationship. I used to run parenting courses for young Mums and was only ever referred to as a facilitator, not a tutor. Everyone shared experiences and nobody was made to feel their comments were 'wrong' (even if deep down you hoped they would see that perhaps their thinking was a bit flawed)
 
Mark Parrott said:
I'm amazed that people diagnosed with diabetes don't do any online research or find this forum. I know there is a lot of dodgy info on the net, but there is also a lot of useful info too. I joined here the day I was diagnosed & learned so much.
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Exactly! To me it was the logical place to look
 
Actually, I deliberately didn't Google because there's a lot of garbage out there. More recently I've done a bit of careful searching & selecting. Didn't get much.
 
That page has a comment about educational courses. It says "Your GP will need to refer you." If it means X-pert, or similar local provision, then in some areas you can refer yourself directly. I did to one. No letter, info or anything from GP practice.

I have actually used info from the NHS Choices site.
 
kentish maid said:
Strange that. They recommend Diabetes UK blogs - http://blogs.diabetes.org.uk/, but chat and forum comes up from co.uk site
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I suspect it may be a mistake. or possibly the page was set up at a time when our forum wasn't so closely identified with the charity (we used to be 'supported' by DUK, but everything got a re-branding in 2015 🙂). I've let DUK know in case they wish to contact NHS Choices. Nothing against the other forum, but it is a commercial enterprise, so you might expect the charity might take precedence or at least equal billing! 🙂
 
Status
This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.
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