Kirstie Abbey

Health & Wellbeing Lead – a very wide-ranging and varied role!

ANGUSalive’s Be Active…Live Well physical activity referral programme is a huge part of my role.  Alongside my team, we work with colleagues across ANGUSalive, Angus Health & Social Care Partnership and an array of wider services to support the most inactive in our communities to use physical activity to improve their health and wellbeing.  Other aspects of the role include working on different projects that can support people’s wellbeing – for example, this could be mental health training for staff within the organisation, to engaging with care homes or health promotion activities across Angus.

At primary school I took part in a lot of athletics and remember travelling to Butlins or similar for camps or competitions – this quickly dropped off which I reached teenage years and sport would not have been in my list of favourite things at secondary school!

I don’t think I would have ever predicted working within sport and leisure!  This role is continuing a career change for me – having been self-employed in a completely different area of work, initially I went to university as a mature student with the thought of moving into nutrition and dietetics or public health.

During my studies I started volunteering with ANGUSalive’s Move More programme which supported people living with and beyond cancer to be more active, and I used this as the basis for my research project.  Hearing about the difference the programme made to people’s lives inspired me to reconsider where I might like to work following graduation.

I think I am very fortunate as a huge part of my role is working with a number of other partners, such as the NHS, as well as sport and leisure colleagues – it really helps to drive the message that physical activity is a key part of a healthy lifestyle.  It isn’t just about being fitter – the social opportunities and improvements to mental health that can come from physical activity and sport are immense.  Sport and leisure plays a huge role in supporting the wellbeing of communities and supporting healthcare organisations in increasing challenging times, and I’m excited to be part of that in Angus.

I am incredibly proud of the work that my team and I have achieved to date in relaunching the Be Active…Live Well programme.  In a fairly short period of time we have tripled the number of referrals coming in, resulting in more people accessing available support to be more active – this can only be a good thing!  Seeing case studies and speaking with participants is a very humbling way to realise how much impact the programme can have on an individual, and in some cases life changing.

I’m also proud to have been given opportunities in this role to represent ANGUSalive alongside health and social care colleagues at national conferences – in one instance presenting on Be Active…Live Well programme in front of Scotland’s Chief Medical Officer!

Being relatively new to the industry, I haven’t experienced anything where I have felt at disadvantage by being female – clearly I work with a great team!