The Rise Awards 2011
for
excellence in improving the quality of life and
well-being of mental health service users receiving support in the community
A. About the Awards
The Rise Awards are presented by Lemos&Crane who are sponsoring a prize of
£1,500. Entries are invited from organisations working with mental health service users.
In particular those organisations that deliver services in the community; residential care;
supported housing; and to people at home.
Entries should be based on work in generating positive outcomes in one or more of the
following three areas:
Developing positive personal identity: Examples might include work to enhance
personal independence and control; service user involvement, choice and
empowerment.
Developing and sustaining relationships. Examples might include work to
enhance relationships with family and friends, loving relationships, relationships with
pets and connections to communities and other networks or associations.
Promoting positive life satisfaction. Examples might include work to enhance
contentment about finances, accommodation, employment, physical health and use
of leisure time.
B. Timetable
Deadline for entries – 5pm Friday December 17, 2010
Shortlist announced – January 14, 2011
Winners announced – January 28, 2011.
C. Rules and procedures
1. Entries must be completed using this entry form and submitted electronically here:
http://www.lemosandcrane.co.uk/home/index.php?id=211749
2. Receipt of all entries submitted online will be automatically acknowledged.
3. Entrants may be asked to provide further information.
4. The judges' decision is final. Awards will be made at the judges' discretion and no
correspondence will be entered into concerning any decision. Not all the awards
advertised may be awarded if the judges consider the criteria have not been met.
Additional commendations may be made at the judges' discretion.
5. The content of any entry may be used for informing other practitioners and also for
publicity purposes unless the entrant withholds their consent to this in writing.
6. Entrants are deemed to have accepted these rules and procedures and to have
D. Your Entry
Please do not exceed 1500 words in total.
1.
Your contact detailsFull name
Deborah Rodin, Service Lead
Organisation
Rethink Bridport Community Services
Telephone number
07918166168
Email address
deborah.rodin@rethink.org
Address
5 Downes Street, Bridport, Dorset
Postcode
DT6 3JR
Website
www.rethink.org
2. Name of project you are entering for the Rise Awards
Rethink Bridport Community Service
3.
Describe your project in one sentenceA third sector mental health community service for working age adults, based on the principles and values of recovery, self-help and social inclusion, that facilitates work, training, education and leisure activities, and continues to evolve in response to the diverse needs of people.
4. Specify the setting(s) where your project is delivered (eg day centre,
residential, drop-in, supported housing, etc)?
community settings and sometimes in people’s homes
5.
What are the project’s objectives?
Reduce the stigma and discrimination of mental illness; facilitate more contact with people outside mental health services; provide opportunities to develop skills and access mainstream provision.6. What are the project’s activities?
Please also see attached supporting documents
Individual and group support Support with employment and vocational/IT Skills, finding work
Rethink Walkers
Fishing and Yoga Groups
Accessing mainstream leisure activities
Bridport Green Growers allotment and Time to Change
Activism
The Front Room
7. What has been the impact of the project (please include any feedback or
evaluation)?
(Please read supporting evidence)
variety of settings. Staff hours have been reconfigured to support this new way of working. Links have been established with employment services and providers of voluntary work, vocational training and other education. Support is also provided to enable people to access mainstream leisure activities. Peer support is facilitated and
encouraged and the Walking Group and Fishing Group have come to be led by service-users and the Yoga Group by a carer.
A small horticultural group was relaunched as Bridport Green Growers, with change driven by our involvement with Rethink’s Green Growers and our link to Time To Change. Service-users and staff attended regional meetings and horticultural classes. Gardening methods were adapted to broaden access and individual support was given to people who preferred to work in their own gardens. Links were made to healthy eating programmes, delivered in groups at the Downes Street hub and on a one to one basis on people’s homes. The Bridport Iris Project has challenged stigma and social exclusion, by growing, potting and selling Irises at various local events, including those marking World Mental Health Day, and from a market stall offered to us free of charge as a result of our growing links with the local council. Each pot contained a card explaining that Iris means Hope and giving information that promotes a recovery based view of mental illness. At each event there was much engagement with members of the local community, many of whom took the
opportunity to discuss their own experience of mental health. The initiative has been embraced by other Rethink Services, with those in Dorchester, Wells, Bournemouth and Taunton asking people to pot Irises during their celebrations of World Mental Health Day. Rethink services in Bournemouth and Poole gave potted Irises as Christmas gifts to other health professionals. One housing service has followed our lead and is planning to create a Hope Garden. Our local Iris project has led to our involvement in the Bridport Christmas Tree Festival.
described feeling empowered by the knowledge that ‘Our Voice will be heard through the art’. The portraits were later exhibited, along with personal statements about mental health and political participation, at The Cafe Gallery, Bridport Arts Centre. The exhibition
coincided with a series of events at the Arts Centre promoting Human Rights and was visited by a parliamentary candidate during the 2010 General Election Campaign. Some participants attended the launch of the project and others the celebrations and exhibition of portraits that marked its completion, all of which took place in The House of Commons, with the involvement of a number of Members of Parliament. Back in Bridport, service users and a carer were supported in November 2010 at a meeting with their local MP, Rt Hon Oliver Letwin; the success of this prompted Mr Letwin to request a further meeting to discuss barriers people with mental health problems face when trying to access paid work.
The changes to the service described above have meant that the room at the front of our Downes Street hub is not used as often. This space has been made available to local people offering activities and classes to the general community, on the proviso that they offer free places to Rethink service-users. The Front Room has been promoted locally with posters and by the Town Council’s Activities Coordinator and has produced much interest. It supports our service philosophy of facilitating more contact with people outside mental health services and providing opportunities to develop skills and access mainstream provision. The initiative is very recent, but already a Reiki class has been booked and a Maths class for children arranged, with a free place offered to a child of a service user. Three people (two of whom are carers) want to set up a small business offering calligraphy and meditation classes and as a first step will provide free workshops to the local
community in The Front Room. A service user with the support of staff will be holding Rag Rug workshops for other service users with the support of staff, with a view to opening these up subsequently to the local community. Another service user has discussed the possibility of holding spinning workshops next year.
The Front Room initiative will be developed further, along the lines described above
The Iris Project will be continued and used as a basis on which to develop further the Rethink Bridport Market Stall.
We are exploring the possibility of helping service-users utilise their skills and interests to set up two social enterprises, one a small gardening business and the other a web-based partnership with local venues for Performing Arts.
