In the last report of 2006-2007, the Forum was beginning to grow as a vibrant, successful organisation with hopes to expand. We had put a lot of effort into publicising and running events for the Forum. We had run aware!!! to promote use of the arts and hedstrong 07 for World Mental Health Day celebrations. We had received funding for the Oasis group. We started our website. We had worked on the Mental Health Promotion Strategy with the PCT and Change for the Better with 5 Boroughs . We had a development worker to help us to meet with other groups and build our own membership.
For a variety of reasons, the Forum has not had an AGM since October 2007. This report is on the last two year’s activity.
October 2007 – 2008
In October 2007, our development worker left after 6 months in post, so we were unable to go out to promote the forum, but we continued with our monthly mailout and meetings. We were worried that we may not be able to achieve this target. Without a worker to help us develop the forum, we knew that our membership, and particularly our active membership, would shrink as people naturally move on. We had concerns about how long we would continue.
Our speakers for 2008 included:
- Alison Brookes – self help group development worker
- Julie Waring – mental health advocate
- Tim Hunt – Patient Opinion
- John Boyington – NHS NW Commission on mental health services
- Community Development workers – Making Space
- No Secrets self harm support group
- Peter Dowd – 5 Boroughs
- Collette Walsh – Single Point of Access
We held an event in October, as part of World Mental Health Day celebrations, to which we invited:
- Dave Sweeney – NHS Halton & St Helens
- Simon Barber – 5 Boroughs
- Terry Lewis – NHS NW Commission on mental health services
During the year, we were involved in the decisions about the single point of access, which will be operational in January 2010.
I would like to thank all the people who helped the forum to continue during 2008, especially Graham Harrison who continued to provide support as treasurer and joint secretary despite many changes to his personal circumstances.
2009
2009 proved to be a difficult year. The URC started building works to include a new lift as well as changes to some of the rooms upstairs. This has allowed disabled access to all floors as well as a new entrance area and doors. We were very impressed by how well the job ran to time and the great improvement this has made to the building. We would also like to thank the church for keeping us informed of progress at every stage. But the building work meant that, for the first few months of the year, we could not use our normal venue.
We cancelled our first meeting of 2009 and encouraged members to attend the mentoring training provided by BlueSci. Our March meeting date coincided with the 5 Boroughs service user and carer event, ‘a better view’. And our July meeting had to be cancelled completely because of a church festival.
We held lower profile meetings, such as group discussions and also described our individual work outside the forum. I described the time to change project and Roman talked about recovery, including his trip to Denver with 5 Boroughs and the ROLE group. We were pleased to see the weekly Oasis group go from strength to strength with the support of together.
In June, our artwork, part of World Mental Health Day projects, was installed in Knowsley House. The etched glass windows, by Isobel Manning, (email: isobel.manning@network.rca.ac.uk ) show illustrations of trees, which reflect wellbeing and strength.
John Boyington, Chair of the Mental Health Improvement Programme for NHS-NW, said
“ This wonderful piece of work is both simple and inspiring and the way that it has been incorporated into the glass of the reception area ensures that it will continue to bring its calming effect to people visiting the centre for many years to come.”
Simon Barber, 5 Boroughs Chief Executive said,
“It is an excellent example of how the creativity of service users and carers has brightened up and personalised something that would otherwise merely serve a necessary, but nonetheless formal, function. I would like to thank St Helens Mental Health Carers and St Helens Mental Health Forum for their part in making this happen.”
Peter Cowley started work as the forum development worker in July 2009. Roman has spent several months introducing Peter to the Forum, ensuring that he is aware of the local services and signposting him towards contacts with service users in other groups.
The Forum is run completely by volunteers. We have continued to offer meetings and mailouts throughout this difficult year. Roman has had a busy year as our representative at meetings including PCT PPI, LINks, acute care forum and partnership boards. Other forum members have contributed to many meetings within St Helens as well as regionally and nationally and we thank them all.
Many forum members have periods where they cannot contribute for a variety of reasons including ill health as well as other responsibilities. We have always said that we believe all groups need people who are paid to help them to make sure there is some continuity. We are sad that both Roman and Dave have said that they will not stand for re-election because of their other commitments. We thank them for all their efforts and hope to see them at our forum meetings in 2010.
I would like to thank our active committee members, Alan, Dave Graham, Joe, Lady, Roman, Sam, and Steve, as well as all people, and organisations, who have supported the forum in 2008 and 2009. There are too many to mention all individuals, but I do of course need to thank NHS Halton & St Helens for their continued funding.
I hope that now we have our worker in place, we will be able to start the new decade with this AGM and move forward so that the forum grows as we had hoped.
Karen Machin
Chair.
