MentalHealthNews Special Edition 2012 New Horizons - Mental Health & Emotional Wellbeing Resource Centre Dates for your Diary RCT Mental Health Week Events • Monday 8th October Rhondda Walk a Mile in Gelligaled Park 11am - 12:30pm • Tuesday 9th October New Horizons open day Dean Street, Aberdare 10am - 4pm • Wednesday 10th October World Mental Health Day event, Merthyr Leisure Centre 10.30am - 2.30pm • Wednesday 10th October Quiz Night, Ton Pentre Football Club 7pm - 10pm • Thursday 11th October Cynon Walk a Mile in Aberdare Park 11am-12:30pm • Saturday 13th October Mental Health Awareness Event YMCA Pontypridd 10am - 4pm NOVEMBER • Wednesday 21st November New Horizons, Apple Tree Stores Open Day, come along to our Dinas outreach and find out all about us. 1pm - 4pm
Welcome
October 8th-13th 2012
Welcome to our special mental health week edition of the newsletter. World Mental Health Day is a global annual event aimed at raising awareness of mental health and addressing associated stigma. This year the theme is Depression - A Global Crisis. New Horizons is playing a key part in the RCT Mental Health week and is pleased to be taking part in all of the events across RCT and Merthyr Tydfil. As always the events are great in promoting mental health services and helping to reduce stigma surrounding mental health illness. For a full list of events please see the side of the page. As usual New Horizons members have been busy attending events such as the RCT Peer Support Conference – (Fight Depression - Stuff Stigma) at the YMCA in Pontypridd. Dr Chris Jones – Chair of Cwm Taf Health Board made a speech and Dr Lynne Friedli also gave a talk. Our AGM in which 3 new committee members were elected (look out for the get to know your committee section on pg 2) and the up and coming newsletters, activities and courses for a list please see page 3 for an update of New activities. We are also pleased to continue to build on our partnership working even though we are not able to continue with the full “one stop shop model” we still have a great partnership working ethos and are pleased that Remploy and MIND counselling are now providing services from our Aberdare centre Please see below for more information on the Remploy job club.
Partnership working
Since the beginning of September New Horizons have been pleased to have been working in partnership with Remploy. Remploy use New Horizons Aberdare to run a job club every Monday and Wednesday 9am-4pm. They support local people with health conditions/ disabilities to find sustainable paid employment through a work choice programme. Remploy deliver 1:1 and group support in job searching, completing applications, C.V. writing, interview skills and employer engagement. The service is available to anyone who has a health condition or disability and is on Jobseekers allowance or sickness related benefit. When asked why Remploy decided to use New Horizons as their base 2 days a week they said “because New Horizons are very productive in supporting people in the local community. The office is convenient to service users and a warm and friendly environment is provided which helps put people at ease.” They also said they find the use of the computers beneficial in their work. Should you wish to use this service please contact Remploy.
NEW HORIZONS Mental Health & Emotional Wellbeing Centre
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AGM
Meet Your New Committee member
On Monday 24th September at 5pm New Horizons held its Annual General Meeting at the Aberdare Centre. During the meeting Phil Gillard (chair of the Management Committee) opened the meeting by welcoming everybody. Phil then listed New Horizons’ main achievements for 2011/12 and briefly discussed the Chairs report in which he announced he was stepping down as Chair due to the charity commissions best practice guidelines but would still play an active role in the committee. Richard Knoyle of B&P Associates Ltd gave an overview of the financial accounts for the year and was pleased to announce that we are in a more financially stable position than we were the previous year. He was then re-appointed as the Independent Examiner. The management committee were then appointed, the trustees are now Pam Abbott, Andrew Chivers, Phil Gillard, Gill Malpas, Delia Powell, Carolyn Samson and Andrew Williams. Steve Curry also announced that he was stepping down from the committee as treasurer. A presentation of cards and paintings by the New Horizons art & craft group was given by Tracy Thomas (project manager) and volunteer Jan Griffiths was then given to Phil Gillard, Steve Curry and Brian Fear (who stood down during the year) to thank them for their commitment and hard work on the committee. As an organisation we would like to welcome the new committee members (meet new MC member Pam Abbott and look out for other committee members profiles in future newsletters) and once again thank the committee existing and old for their dedication and commitment to New Horizons. A special thank you also goes to New Horizons volunteer Susan Seaward for her help with the paperwork and recording the minutes of the meeting. A full copy of reports can be found on the New Horizons website and the Charity Commissions.
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Name - Pam Abbott Age - 64 years Interest - Cookery, zumba, walking my pet dogs and my family Where did you first hear about New Horizons? When I was a mental health social work team manager I worked closely with New Horizons. Lately I have had contact with service users of the organisation What made you want to volunteer on the New Horizons Committee? I now have time to devote to becoming a committee member. I feel that my expertise in the field of mental health would enable me to contribute to planning of services etc. What skills do you feel you can bring to the committee and New Horizons? I am a qualified approved social worker under the 1983 Mental Health Act. I have been involved with many committee meetings, conferences, vulnerable adults policy meetings and I have organised and chaired most of the above meetings. What about the role are you looking forward to and what do you envisage to be challenging? I am looking forward to being involved with service users again as I am able to empathise with their situations. I envisage multi agency working to be challenging but I am used to these challenges which occurred when I was a team manager for 10 years. What is your future vision for the organisation? To expand services and to work successfully with other voluntary and statutory agents to provide a comprehensive service which meets the needs of the service users.
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Open Day at ATS
Support Iwan Griffiths
21st November 2012
Iwan Griffiths will be running Cardiff Half Marathon 2012 for New Horizons on 14th October. You can help him raise money for New Horizons by visiting www.justgiving.com/iwanhgriffiths
Come along and meet staff, volunteers and see the services New Horizons provides for those with Mental and Emotional Wellbeing issues that live in the community. New Horizons, Apple Tree Stores,Dinas, Rhondda Wednesday 21st November 2012 Time: 1 -4 For further information contact: Tracy Thomas on 01443 681881
Courses at New Horizons Mountain Ash every Monday 2-3- Piano lessons please contact Kristy to book your space on (01685) 881113 Aberdare Friday 9th November 1-3 Walk and Talk (WEA course) - The walk leader will take participants around on a short gentle paced walk and show places of historical interest (participants will not be walking for the whole 2 hours). Members to meet at New Horizons at 12:30 on the day but must be booked on the course to book your space please contact Kristy on (01685) 881113 Apple Tree Stores- Walk and Talk and Confidence building (WEA courses) date to be confirmed please contact Tracey on (01443) 681881 Pentre House every Tuesday- Free reflexology to make an appointment please contact Tracey on (01443) 681881 on a Wed, Thurs or Fri
Money Management
“the course was very interesting and they took on board a lot of the content, regarding APR as this is unclear to many people. It’s made them look at what they need and don’t need to spend their money on. Also made them realise the importance of life insurance. PH & JY Quote from members who recently participated in a money management course facilitated by the WEA
My story Once again I have decided to run the Cardiff Half Marathon, and I’m doing it for more than just a nice shiny medal. This year I’ve decided to raise as much money as I possibly can for New Horizons Mental Health Centre. They operate throughout Rhondda Cynon Taff raising awareness about mental health, helping those who live with mental health problems and challenge discrimination by means of education, outreach work, information and support services. They’re an extremely worthwhile organisation who create opportunities that people who struggle with mental health disorders might never get otherwise. Thank you Iwan
Wish Campaign New Horizons will be participating in the South Wales Echo’s Wish campaign to try to win a share of the £25,000 on offer to help us to carry on inspirational work in our area. Now it’s your chance to get involved. All you have to do is collect the tokens from the South Wales Echo every day and when you are finished collecting them drop them into New Horizons. Tokens will be printed daily until Saturday, November 17 with special bonus token days throughout that period. Make sure you never miss a copy of the paper as every token collected counts, and how much money New Horizon receives depends on how many tokens you collect. In January 2013 the South Wales Echo will be printing a supplement detailing how much money New Horizons has been awarded.
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NH2 Creative Design NH2 creative design is a new web development and graphic design social enterprise business established by New Horizons. The target customers are Third Sector organisations, the public, new start up businesses and established small to medium size businesses. Since the early 1990’s New Horizons has been a major provider of Third Sector mental health support services of its’ kind in the Cynon and Rhondda Valleys. One in four people will experience mental health problems in their life. The stigma attached to mental health conditions can add insult to injury. At a time when people need most support they can become isolated and personal confidence can be shattered and skills and abilities disintegrate. Rhondda Cynon Taf is an area labelled ‘socially excluded’ and many wards score highly on all poverty indicating factors and indicating factors such as self esteem and ambition is generally extremely low. New Horizons aims to address these profound issues and work towards sustainable personal, social and economic development. New Horizons helps ‘socially excluded’ individuals by working directly with the marginalised group of people who experience mental health issues within Rhondda Cynon Taf. The benefits that the project would bring would include• The ‘upskilling’ of people who are experiencing mental health issues through their involvement in the project as volunteers • Volunteers would receive training in IT and business development and marketing • The support for these volunteers to develop the above skills will assist in their search for
employment which would then in turn help to improve the local economy • Volunteering on the project would help to improve levels of confidence and reduce isolation in the community • The long term sustainability for New Horizons and reduction in grant dependency • It would increase the number of partners that New Horizons actively works with Through involvement in the project of people experiencing mental health issues there will be additional outcomes of – • Increased confidence and reduced isolation of the volunteers on the project • Increased training in IT and business development skills of the volunteers involved in the Project • A mentoring scheme would also be considered within the feasibility study to enable volunteers on the Project to support new volunteers on the project • Improved mental health and well being as a result of being involved in the project If you are interested in volunteering on the project please call Claire on 01685 881113
Mental Health Support Great opportunities are available for in-house volunteers and virtual volunteers: learn to research, write articles and stories, source images or take photographs, provide technical IT support to the web-site co-ordinator, share IT skills with other contributors. We are always looking for new volunteers and virtual volunteers to help run the website so if you are interested please get in touch with one of the team. If you haven’t already done so check it out at www.mentalhealthsupport.co.uk
For all projects
10am-1pm Recovery Star, Project 1:1 support, 1pm – 4pm Activities, Groups, Training and Safe Space
Cynon 16 Dean Street 10am - 4pm Every Tuesday, Thursday & Friday Providence Chapel Mountain Ash 10am - 4pm Every Monday
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Rhondda Apple Tree Stores, Dinas 10am - 4pm Every Wednesday, Thursday & Friday & Pentre House, Pentre (next to St.Peters Church) 10am - 4pm Every Tuesday
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Volunteer led peer support group Fridays 1pm - 4pm St.Lleurwg’s Church Hirwaun.