Meeting up after the course

I did my DAFNE course last year. It really changed my life. However after a year I am noticing that I am slipping a little. My hospital do have meetups every 6 months or so but they are of all the PCT's DAFNE courses merged together plus some other local course called 'GATTO' (http://www.londondiabetes.nhs.uk/content.aspx?pageid=100466 since Mark wanted to know about local courses), so places go very fast and I have missed getting one.

I wanted to say that meeting other diabetics was one of the most valuable things about DAFNE for me and now after a year without face to face meetings I am struggling and my knowledge is beginning to fade under other pressures.

As far as I can tell, it is up the the PCT whether they arrange meetups after the course, or maybe the course members if they get along as a group.

What experiences have others had with meeting up after the course? Do you think it is important or have you managed to stick to DAFNE without it?

I agree - one of the most useful and rewarding parts of DAFNE for me was meeting up with other people who had Type 1, and gaining from their experiences too. It is a shame that this isn't sustained more/is quite hit and miss depenending on where you are in the country.

One of the things we were looking at for future work was adding 'regional' areas so you could see other site users from your DAFNE Centre or others close by, and arrange social events through the site. We've been stabilizing our current features, but will be soon looking to the future and new features. If there is enough demand for something like this, then it will get done.

Lizzie,
Thanks for the tip about GATTO, as simon said we have plans to have regional areas on the site in the future to help 'local' DAFNE graduates keep in touch. The problem with this at the moment is we have only 53 graduates registered on the site out of 288 users. In addition 37 of the 288 are HCP's. This probably means the message about the site has not got to graduates yet. Once we have more graduates, there is a potential membership of 5000+, regional areas of the site will make more sense. We just need to boost the graduate
membership !

Lastly I totally agree that meeting other diabetics was one of the great things about the course. Spending a week with 7 other people who were like me and had the same experiences was a brilliant. At the moment my DAFNE meet-ups involve the same people I did the course with, but as more people do the course it may be necessary for me to do the same as you. I'm not sure that your PCT is meeting DAFNE guidelines if they don't give you follow up meetings and you keep missing out on them.

Hi All

Just finished my DAFNE course today!!!!! Brilliant week and after having diabetes for nearly 30 years I am feeling more comfortable and confident than ever. This is in part down to the group of people that did it alongside me, we have all exchanged email/mobile numbers and even been out for a pint this evening!!!! We intend to be around for one and other for support and help and meet up on regular intervals to catch up. Also glad I found this site as maybe this can help to

yes hopefully we can help. One of the aims of this site is to help graduates continue to enjoy the benefits of DAFNE, one of which is to meet a group of fellow Diabetics. One of the plans for the site is to provide areas of the site specific to DAFNE centres so the people running the course can keep their graduates informed and graduates from the same centre can stay in touch.

welcome to the site and I'm glad you enjoyed the course as much as we did !

just completed my DAFNE course last week, what a useful week it was. I wish I had gone on one years ago. I believe it worked particulary because the group really worked together well, in fact I did the course with jay70 on this forum. I thought the two course leaders were excellent and let us go at our pace, giving us time to ask questions and have a laugh. I would recomend a similar course to anyone considering it. You get so much more than you expected not least other peolpe in a similar situation to share your experiences with. We have vowed to meet up again and hope we can. Thanks DAFNE.

Well I did DAFNE 5 years ago now! We met up after 6 or 12 months for a day refresher, which was great, but after a further 4 years I'm definitely struggling with the finer points. I have moved twice since then so have no contact with T1 diabetics. I use a couple of other forums, but most members are american and are pump orientated. I've only just been referred back to a hospital as we are trying for a baby, so for the last few years I've essentially been on my own.

It would be great if we could have some type of meet ups in future from this forum, based on location rather than where you did DAFNE! Maybe not a formal refresher (thoguh I would love one of those) as I appreciate the costs and logistics involved, but just a chance to meet other local (ish) DAFNEites and T1 diabetics.

interesting points, at the DAFNE Collaborative a few months ago, one of the presentations was about research on post course experiences and its was clear that some people need further support/training and some need something less formal but still need support to help them stay focused on DAFNE Principles. I think this is one of the areas the DAFNE User Action Group
should address (there will be a section on the website for the group, when I work out how to format it) and I will raise it as a discussion point at the next meeting. One of the current DUAG objectives is to find the 'missing' 12,000 DAFNE Graduates who did the course before permission was asked to hold their details centrally. Once we 'find' the missing 12,000 we will need a plan to keep them involved/updated. Since not everyone has, or will have, access to this website having localised meetings for those interested would be a sensible option.