Writing for Wellbeing Insights Project

Here at The Writers Workshop, we’re delighted to welcome two medical students from The University of Sheffield who are on placement until December 18th. Jake and Jaynie are with us to gain insight into the prosocial, emotional and mental health benefits our members get from creative writing and explore how our writing for wellbeing programme might develop in 2026.

Information gathered by the students will inform The Writers Workshop’s promotional, partnership, and grant-seeking strategies going forward. We have a sense of the importance of our work in the arena of wellbeing, but this project would provide useful qualitative data that we can draw on to expand our writing-for-wellbeing programme and promote it to individuals, health services providers, and community groups.

We asked them to introduce themselves:

Hello! I'm Jaynie, one of two medical student volunteers at The Writers Workshop. As a member of both the Creative Writing Society & Psychiatry Society committees at the University of Sheffield, I'm incredibly invested in the role that creative writing can play in processing both trauma and day-to-day struggles, and in improving mental and emotional wellbeing.

My writing journey started almost a decade ago, at the age of 12. I have also journalled daily for 2.5 years and write both fiction and nonfiction in my free time.

Together with my colleague, Jake, and the staff at The Writers Workshop, we’ll be attending sessions and learning more about the work that they do, how it benefits members of the community who attend, and figuring out when writing can be most helpful to you. By doing so, we hope to increase engagement within the community and provide greater benefits to members – both long-standing & those who are just discovering writing. 

And meet Jake!

Hi, I’m Jake and I’m a medical student at the University of Sheffield who is joining the team at The Writers Workshop throughout December. As students on placement, we are tasked with collaborating with local services to help us develop a greater understanding of the ways in which we can improve the wellbeing of the community outside of the typical course of our studies.

The Writer’s Workshop stood out to me personally because I used to love writing in school, but I haven’t ever pursed it afterwards. I feel like this is a common experience people have with writing, and The Writers Workshop’s openness to everybody, from beginners to published authors, gave me the excitement and confidence I was looking for to explore writing once again. I had mostly involved myself with sport and getting outdoors since my teens, but in the past couple of years I’ve found so much joy in more creative outlets, such as singing, into my life.

In particular, the wellbeing writing sessions offered here caught my eye, as this is something which I have always wanted to try more regularly but never really knew where to start. My recent steps (and missteps) into poetry writing, after discovering an old copy of a Sylvia Plath anthology, have opened my eyes to just how cathartic writing can be, and I’m excited to learn more about this in my month with the team here.

Look out for a special questionnaire soon! We hope you’ll participate and let us know what creative writing means to you in your life.