By Jennifer Hough<\/p>\n
A SOCIAL campaigner who yesterday received a lifetime achievement award for her work with homeless people has vowed to carry on for another lifetime.<\/p>\n
Alice Leahy, the co-founder of charity TRUST, a social and health service set up in 1975, said it was a “great boost” to receive the National Health Literacy Award, which recognises healthcare professionals efforts to address health literacy problems.<\/p>\n
She said it was not about her but about recognising the people she and her team meet everyday.<\/p>\n
Winning opened doors for them and allowed their work to continue, she said.<\/p>\n
Ms Leahy, who has received awards over the years for her work with society\u2019s most disadvantaged people, said realising you had a lifetime of work done, it was also important to wake up the next morning and start all over again.<\/p>\n
She said communicating with people in a simple way was paramount to helping them.<\/p>\n
A big problem for people using services, she said, is the jargon they face.<\/p>\n
“One phrase used now in relation to poverty is \u2018case management\u2019 but this is such a cold and meaningless term,” said Ms Leahy.<\/p>\n
“To me language in use now is distancing people. We need to use simple language, and be crystal clear,” she said.<\/p>\n
Ms Leahy, who last year published a book titled Wasting Time With People, said if we do not give our time, what is the point.<\/p>\n
Dr Gerardine Doyle, UCD Business Schools and chairperson of the Crystal Clear Awards judging panel said Ms Leahy was chosen as her work embodies the ethos of health literacy.<\/p>\n
“Alice\u2019s work empowers those who are sleeping on the streets of Dublin, who have varying literacy levels, to access the services they need,” she said.<\/p>\n
“The judges felt her willingness to communicate in non-conventional ways through personal contact, paintings, poems, uplifting magazines and books is inspirational, and we honour her for her ongoing dedication to a person-centred model of care.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Jennifer Hough A SOCIAL campaigner who yesterday received a lifetime achievement award for her work with homeless people has vowed to carry on for another lifetime. Alice Leahy, the co-founder of charity TRUST, a social and health service set up in 1975, said it was a “great boost” to receive the National Health Literacy … Continue reading Crystal Clear win for charity founder<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":235,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aliceleahytrust.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1119"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aliceleahytrust.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aliceleahytrust.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aliceleahytrust.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/235"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aliceleahytrust.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/aliceleahytrust.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1119\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aliceleahytrust.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aliceleahytrust.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aliceleahytrust.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}