A day in the life of
Toby Fairs-Billam, Manager of Live Well UK’s Kick Butt smoking prevention service, runs through a typical day at work.
Early morning, I arrive at a local secondary school. Upon being shown to the drama room, I begin setting up for this morning’s smoking prevention presentation. During the session the students engage well in discussion, especially around issues to do with the tobacco industry’s underhand promotion of cigarettes on Facebook and in Hollywood movies. Everyone also appears to enjoy using our remote voting software as part of our interactive quiz and they display a particular interest in the health hazards linked to smoking shisha.
Feeling pleased with such a positive student response, I pack up my equipment and return to the office where I’m just in time to meet with Kick Butt’s team of Young Advisors. I promptly split the guys into two groups and challenge them to source materials and create some high impact placards for a protest rally taking place the following week. The focus of the protest is to address the use of child labour in cigarette manufacturing. Both groups respond enthusiastically and using materials gleaned from a range of locations, produce some excellent banners with eye-catching slogans. Around midday I take a break and try to unwind from a busy morning. Live Well UK’s training room provides an ideal, quiet retreat for me to flow through a short relaxing yoga sequence, before my stomach then gets the better of me and I finally tuck into my lunch.
I spend the early part of my afternoon liaising with different services and youth projects, which results in confirmation of Kick Butt’s attendance at some very exciting community-based events. At around 3.30pm my focus shifts as a local 6th form student arrives at the office seeking quit smoking advice. She agrees to participate in a 6 week quit programme and I begin by exploring her smoking history. Our first meeting then ends with me introducing her to our new ‘age progression software’. Upon seeing her face aged to that of a 70 year old smoker, she consequently vows never to touch a cigarette again. On this positive note, I feel that my job is done for the day and decide it’s time to head home.