From Chaos to Conference

15 August 2024

In this blog, Steph Grant writes about the upcoming Head Injury and Homelessness Research Group (HIHRG) conference in Sheffield and how his own experiences as a person living with a traumatic brain injury has led him to chair the group.

Steph has been involved with SHSC for a long time, as a service user, volunteer and member of the lived experience research partnership (LERP).

Steph has written his blog mainly in the third person. He explains: “My writing in the third person is something that comes ‘natural to me’ since my accident. I often talk about it when I’m teaching or doing some other sort of presentation. It has to do with the concept of ‘ambiguous loss’, the bereavement if you like of your pre-morbid self. The loss of ‘I’ in identity. Perhaps it is discrete to serious traumatic brain injury survivors, but I don’t know about that. I think it does extend across some other pathologies?”

The title ‘From Chaos to Conference’ is an accurate representation of Steph Grant’s journey from sustaining a serious frontal lobe traumatic brain injury (TBI) and subsequently experiencing chaos, receiving and responding positively to neurological rehabilitation; to co-hosting, as Chair of the Head Injury and Homelessness Research Group (HIHRG), with Dr Caroline Bald, who is chair of the national Brain Injury Social Work Group (BISWG), a Conference at Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) on 11 September 2024 ‘Brain Injury and homelessness – learning from survivors, carers, research and practice’.

Steph attended the Long Term Neurological Conditions Upperthorpe (LTNCU) in 1996, some ten years or so after he had sustained his brain injury in a high speed head-on collision which killed both drivers instantly. During the time, from accident to LTNCU, Steph floundered and experienced dangerous, sometimes tragic, chaos, as he struggled to survive in the dark margins, and on the periphery, of society. Throughout the time, prior to neuro-rehabilitation with the Sheffield Community Brain Injury Rehabilitation Team (SCBIRT), Steph experienced homelessness, multiple exclusion, nights in the cells and appearances in court, disenfranchised from housing and benefits services, poor mental health, alcohol and substance misuse, and many other comorbidities that all too frequently accompany brain injury and unmet need. Steph wrote an article on the reflections of his journey through rehab and the origin and evolution of the HIHRG, which was published in a peer-reviewed journal, the British Journal of Social Work (BJSW), in April 2023. Steph’s reflective piece 'Dancing Stars from Chaos: The Impact of Specialist Social Worker Involvement upon the Experiences of a Brain Injury Survivor' can be found here.

Other brain injury survivor members of HIHRG, Jennie Martin and Rachel Grellier (also SHSC NHS patient safety partner), will be showcasing a Review of the Consultancy Panel between Homelessness Assessment and Support Team (HAST), SCBIRT/LTNC and HIHRG, which was set up in partnership to better address the needs of those who are homeless or insecurely housed. SHSC staff from HAST and SCBIRT shall be co-presenting this excellent piece of coproduction. Brain injury survivors from the peer support group Brains of Somewhere (BOS) and supporting SCBIRT staff shall also be presenting at conference, alongside the inestimable Ann Hurley, mother and carer of a son with a brain injury who will be talking about the co-production between staff, survivors and carers with which Ann has been involved for many years.

Other presenters and delegates shall be coming from across the country to focus upon brain injury and unmet need in marginalised populations. The central theme to the conference is that those with lived experience of chaos should be central to any investigation or redesign of service provision intended to meet the needs of the population. As such there is a great deal of overlap between HIHRG and the Lived Experience Research Partnership (LERP) with members of each group working collaboratively. Ellie Wildbore, LERP/HIHRG member and Research Ambassador with the SHSC NHS Trust’s Research Development Unit (RDU), alongside other lived experience LERP members, shall be attending and exhibiting at the conference.

The greater number of attending delegates will be drawn from the Adult Social Care (ASC) sector, particularly Social Workers who are keen to learn about Brain Injury Social Work, resources available, approaches and strategies to develop. HIHRG and other partners from across the Trust, have been working closely for the last 12 months or so with SCC ASC and the centrally funded Changing Futures programme, to address these issues, provide training, conduct research and drive strategies forward in Sheffield, South Yorkshire and beyond. More recently, HIHRG have started to strengthen connections with and become part of the Acquired Brain Injury Justice Network (ABIJN). Professor Nathan Hughes (University of Sheffield) is chair of the ABIJN and shall be chairing the morning session at conference.

I cannot close these words without giving a big shout out to ‘Ben’s Centre for Vulnerable People’ who will be exhibiting at conference and which is where it all began in Sheffield for HIHRG.

Survivors, carers, clinicians and other colleagues, I look forward to seeing many of you at conference on 11 September 2024!

Steph Grant, TBI survivor and chair, Head Injury and Homelessness Research Group.