Well, here we go again August is out the window and there is that September nip in the air today.
We were extremely busy in August but looking at September this looks like being one of our busiest months this year. Let’s have a look, starting with Mondays.
As well as our normal communication feedback media group which will be held each Monday from 10 AM until 3 PM we have additional developments in this meeting.
On 14th September during the communications group in the morning we will be reviewing a scheme called a place of safety. We are hoping to achieve the formal standard of being a place of safety.
In the afternoon on the 14th our group will be attending the mental health directorate at Rampton Hospital, presenting our recovery stories and ending the session with a good old singalong with the Rosewood rockers. On 21st September the comms group will not run because it is our involvement interview team training. This training enables service users carers of volunteers to become actively involved in the interview process. After this training we will have a member of staff from the forensic division coming to talk about their upcoming 15 step challenge. The 15 step challenge is exactly how it sounds- volunteers and staff audit wards and day centres reviewing characteristics as they walk onto the environment and reporting back and suggesting improvements on their findings. For more information see here.
Each Tuesday in September we will be partnership working with the Alzheimer’s Society carers’ group. This carers’ group will be receiving training to help them in their day-to-day lives. It will also be an opportunity to advertise our local county carers’ in Bassetlaw, Newark and Sherwood, Mansfield, and Ashfield. We are expecting this group to take part in our world mental health awareness week event on 9 October which highlights issues relating to carers.
Fridays are as normal with centre meeting each day from 1-3pm. These meetings have an invited guest who explains their role and how this can fit into our work- guest speakers range from staff nurses to the chief executive and all other staff in between. We will be attending the peaks unit at Rampton on 12 September for a patient user group looking at how our volunteers can support patients with feedback, interviewing, and recovery pathways.
On 11th September there is a chance for volunteers, service users, and carers from both involvement centres to come along and meet the head of involvement. This meeting is from 1030 until 1230 and a good opportunity for all volunteers to hear national and local policy updates and also have an opportunity to air any concerns and review our plans.
On 16th September from 12 until 2 PM is the County North deaf carers’ group.
Two of our volunteers will be attending the woman’s service and male PD service to help prepare patients with their own personal recovery stories which they will give at a recovery conference at Rampton on 23rd September.
On September 3rd at Rampton Hospital two of our volunteers will attend a subgroup of the restrictive practice group. The six work streams are looking at restrictions across the whole forensic division- this could be anything from not been able to get a cup of tea after midnight to one patient being restricted from doing something on a ward so all patients are prevented from doing it. We also look at long-term seclusion and segregation. The idea is to see if these types of interventions can be improved upon the patients with less time spent in seclusion and segregation.