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Service User Group activities
Birchwood Highland Recovery Centre
The new Recovery Centre walking group has been out and about a lot over the winter, with trips to the Black Isle, the Ord Hill, Culbin Forest and Ness Islands amongst others. If you have a favourite walk that you think might be suitable, or you might be interested in coming along, please get in touch by email with Marc or Janet at the Recovery Centre, or call them on 01463 716600.
At the start of 2009, the Recovery Centre took delivery of six bikes for the use of service users, purchased with a donation from Highland Cross. This is a great way of keeping fit, and we have a number of keen cyclists at the Recovery Centre who are looking forward to getting around more this spring and summer.
Work has started on the Recovery Centre's plastic bottle greenhouse. This is a brilliant way of recycling old soft drink bottles so that you get a cheap, efficient and easy to maintain greenhouse into the bargain. This eco-friendly greenhouse needs 1500 clear two-litre bottles, and we're still looking for a few hundred more. If you can help us reach our target, please get in touch by email with Marc or Roddy at the Recovery Centre, or by telephone on 01463 716600.
Inverness Group
Over the winter months, Inverness Service User Group has been meeting at the Dunbar Centre cafe in Church Street, Inverness, for a coffee and a chat. We find this venue very friendly and relaxing. We have also met in our offices at Wells Street and enjoyed healthy home cooking. Outdoors, we have been for walks around the Ness Islands to see the winter festival lights.
In the spring and summer months we plan to do a lot more. We have been in touch with the bowling club and are planning a few games of outdoor bowls. Pitch and putt is back on the agenda, as is a lot more walking.
John, a member of Inverness service user group, has set up a guitar workshop at our Wells Street base every Thursday morning.
Summer tends to bring more opportunities for fundraising, and to end the season we are holding a ceilidh at the Columba Hotel, Inverness on Friday 9th October.
Easter Ross Group
The Easter Ross Drop In takes place in Invergordon every Friday afternoon. A substantial number of service users attend, finding it to be fun, relaxing and educational. For some it's an opportunity for companionship, with a chance to chat with friends over a cup of tea. Each week there's a different activity that service users have arranged for themselves. They're encouraged to play an active role in planning and making decisions about indoor and outdoor activities.
Roskeen Free Church has very kindly given our Drop In free access to their mini bus. This has made possible a variety of trips, to The Museum of Childhood and the Belgian chocolate shop in Strathpeffer, Tain Pottery, the ANTA Factory Shop, Tain and Glen Morangie Distillery.
One service user has a great interest in birds, and this led to a visit by the others to see a collection of birds of prey. From one person's interest, several service users have become interested.
Our plans are bigger and better in 2009. We are looking forward to visits to Elgin, Wick, Inverewe Gardens, Inverness and Eden Court Theatre, the Nigg Ferry to Cromarty, and dolphin spotting on the Moray Firth.
Indoor activities will include tie dying, rag painting, drawing, painting pictures and clay modelling. There will be a healthy eating day, offering new and everyday healthy, nutritious meals for tasting. There will also be a fire safety talk from the Community Fire Officer, and First Aid training.
Service users would like to take up more physical exercise, and have decided to start a Walking Group and a Cycling Group. The cycles are being sourced at present.
To fund all these activities there has been a vigorous fundraising effort throughout the year by service users and staff. Last summer we had a stall outside Birchwood's Invergordon office manned by service users. A lot of business on the stall was achieved by being bright and friendly towards people visiting from cruise ships, and many friends were made. Some of our staff were invited to America by social workers visiting the port. They were surprised that we worked with the Recovery approach, as they were just introducing this approach through the university in their home state. They were also surprised by our knowledge and understanding, and were impressed that a small town in the north of Scotland was so forward-thinking.
We also took part in community activities and had stalls at Lifeboat Day, Highland Games and Street Fair, helping to raise Birchwood's profile in the community as well as funds.
We have a rolling programme of shared training with service users. Topics have included The Mental Health Act, Vulnerable Adults Act, Highland Users Group, Red Cross - First Aid training, National Autistic Society, Disability Scotland, Jobcentre Plus.
Caithness Friends of Birchwood Highland
Recently a good number of people who use our service got together for a meeting with Linsey Downie from the Care Commission, as part of the service inspection process. Unfortunately severe weather prevented Linsey from reaching Caithness, but the meeting went ahead and some excellent suggestions were put forward. For example, instead of having a service user group, we could have a "friends of Birchwood Highland" group that could include anyone with an interest in the service - people who use the service, carers and volunteers.
The purpose of this group is to provide some degree of support for each other, to give feedback on the service and to plan for events such as the art exhibition in conjunction with the "See me" campaign and the occasional social activity.
The group has just drawn up a joint training schedule, which includes topics such as First Aid, the Mental Health Act and an introduction to the ten essential shared capabilities.
The next Friends of Birchwood Highland meeting is scheduled for 11 am on Thursday 28th May at the Wellington Centre, Wick.
Lochaber Group
Lochaber Service user group has started its own bi-monthly newsletter, Blogaber Views, completely sourced and edited by them. The benefits of this are endless, spanning interview techniques, literacy, IT skills, and developing an interest in community events.
Working with Merkinch Enterprises on a bicycle recycling project, 7 service users and staff learned how to repair and maintain bikes and eventually received their restored machines. This led to the formation of our Bike Group, which resumed its activities in March, having lost no momentum over the winter!
"Highland Lives is Working" is an employability programme developed for people living in the Highlands & Islands of Scotland. It consists of a mix of skills development, confidence building, certificated training, organisation and planning. After inviting a repesentative to speak to the service user group, a member of the group volunteered and went on to produce and complete a DVD on depression, which we now use in joint training.
The group has now offered to edit our new DVD on recovery, which we hope to finish later in the year.
We formed another new partnership with Friends of Nevis, a local organisation which encourages individuals, families and organisations to help support and manage Ben Nevis and the surrounding Nevis area. It started with several service users and staff spending a day cleaning up Glen Nevis, which left everyone feeling good about giving something back. One service user went on to help rebuild the Ben Nevis paths, and ended up their Volunteer of the Year 2008, which was a great achievement.
Listen to Lochaber Service User Group members talk about their activities and how they have benefited from being members of the group - just click on the link opposite.
(From a broadcast on Nevis Radio on 20 May 2009 - in mp3 format)