November 2023: Engage Britain has now merged with Demos. You can still find all our work from 2019-2023 here, but to get in touch or find out about our new ventures, go to https://demos.co.uk/

“I think it’s important to give people validation for what they are going through.” [AUDIO]

“I think it’s important to give people validation for what they are going through. Validating them mentally, maybe, but also physically validating something that might not be visible. But to them it’s very real. And when you get dismissed constantly, it’s like ‘Oh, it doesn’t exist’, or ‘It’s not important enough to exist’, you know, you end up just dealing with things yourself. I think doctors and healthcare professionals need to get in the habit of validating people and saying ‘Okay, I realise you’re going through this’,right, ‘I understand you’re going through this’, or ‘I see that you’re going through this’ and letting you know that what you’re going through is real.”