by Sheila & Stephen – Involvement Volunteers (Aka Q)
The Rosewood Involvement Centre holds a centre meeting every Friday afternoon, in Ollerton in North Nottinghamshire. This meeting is for Involvement volunteers with guest speakers and staff sharing their experiences and information together. Sometime we receive training at the meeting to help us with our volunteering activities. The meeting usually kicks off with a sandwich lunch prepared by our volunteers which is a good way to get to know staff and new volunteers too.
Discussions are wide and varied such as the Executive Leadership Council (ELC).
The Executive Leadership Council (ELC) is made up of 150 senior members of the Trust. They meet on a monthly basis to share and discuss the leadership and direction of the organisation.
New volunteers joined the council in September 2015. Volunteers are expected to feedback to the Rosewood Friday meeting about ELC so that Involvement Volunteers have some awareness of what happens in our Trust at senior level. It helps us to understand how the Trust is thinking and moving forward.
We are encouraged to feedback about our involvement work in the meeting. Paul R, Involvement Volunteer, shared his experience at one meeting about The Kings Fund Conference in London. The subject was “Improving access to Mental Health” through digital means. Involvement is really varied and finding out what is going on in other parts of the country can be really useful to help us in Involvement.
Updates from other Involvement meetings are shared in the Friday meeting such as the ‘Routes to Employment’ meeting held at Duncan McMillian House Nottingham which is open to anyone with an interest in getting back to employment for people who have been experienced mental ill health by raising awareness of the barriers in returning to work after being unwell.
Upcoming weekly events are shared such as ‘Bassetlaw Live’ Hospital Open Day, the Monday Communications Group, Carers Groups and Mental Health Awareness Weeks events.
Patient-led assessments of the care environment (PLACE) Audit Training is just one of the many opportunities held at Rosewood .The meeting encourages us to suggest things that may help in our roles as volunteers. E.g. A dance group was suggested to give volunteers some self-confidence, fun and help fitness.
New volunteers are welcome at Rosewood. Tel: 0115 993 4567 for more information
E-mail: involve@nottshc.nhs.uk Twitter: @InvolveT1