When Pat, a Methodist lay worker, met Paul, an NHS community health worker, the outcome was to transform their Salford neighbourhood. Paul was starting a men’s health group for those facing physical and mental challenges. Pat was wondering how the church could help local people in one of the most health-deprived, crime-ridden communities in the UK. She also knew that Cleggs Lane Methodist Church was on the brink of closure. The meeting led to a defiantly innovative partnership between the church’s tiny, ageing membership and a group of self-declared ‘misfits’ in need of refuge. Ten years on, and the result has been nothing short of transformation.
Every Friday morning, members of the men’s health group gather in the hall at Cleggs Lane. They range in age from 19 to 65 and bring physical and mental challenges from epilepsy to depression, addiction to autism. Paul’s determination to start the group, and the church’s commitment to support it, came from seeing how few men actually seek help or medical treatment. Many end up isolated, unemployed and spiralling into increasingly debilitating ill health.
