l i fewww.mcch.org.uk Winter 2014

mental health and wellbeing news

Support planning doesn’t need to be form filling. Page 11

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WelcomeSam Woollard Editor

Award nominations

We are so pleased to win this year’s Great British Care Awards for the London area. Our Carlton Centre team won the care team award for their great work getting the people we support settled into their new building.

We also had success at the 3rd Sector Care Awards. Our mental health specialists were runners-up for the collaboration and integration award and Allan Finn won the citizenship award for his work with the Jigsaw hate crime project.

Awards are a great way to recognise the hard work of everyone at mcch. We have been nominated for 2 national awards and are recognising the achievements of our staff at our annual awards ceremony.

I was very humbled to even be nominated so you can imagine how I felt to be announced as a winner!

Colin Thomas Employee of the Year

Staff get an award

We recognised the hard work and dedication of our staff and volunteers at our annual awards ceremony. We gave them awards to say thank you for their great work.

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World Mental Health Day

Our Live it Well Centre in Ashford invited different organisations to give advice about the support they offer.

They also shared poems that were written by the people they work with. The poems were also written to celebrate the Live it Well centre’s 5 year anniversary.

All of the poems were written by people who attend the Live it Well centre. We would like to share one of these with you.

Friday 10 October was World Mental Health Day. Many of our services took part in the celebrations by holding open days and working in partnership with other mental health providers.

Stigma by Sari

Get up out your wheelchair, Paraplegia isn’t real! You’re being awfully lazy - Don’t pretend you’re really ill!

How dare you claim for ESA Because you cannot breathe?! Those cruel and clumsy nasal tubes Are too unsubtle to believe!

What do you need help for, You’ve only lost an arm! You still have one that works just fine - There’s no cause for alarm

If everybody thought these things Society would shatter But for the mentally disabled It doesn’t seem to matter

We need to just get over it; We needn’t be so blue; We’re clearly far too self-absorbed: We should be more like you

But we can no more hide our pain Than a crippled man can walk, So try a little empathy And think before you talk.

To read more of these poems visitwww.mcch.org.uk/liveitwell

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Crisis CaféJudi Page Team Leader Wellbeing Centre

The Wellbeing Centre (Hart and Rushmoor) is the mental health hub for the area and funded by Hampshire County Council. We provide support, workshops, group work, information on and signposting to community services and employment support. Our focus is on emotional wellbeing and recovery, so we were so pleased to receive funding from North East Hants and Farnham CCG in April this year to extend our service with a ‘crisis café’.

Working in partnership with Surrey and Borders NHS Trust and The Welcome Project the new café provides support for people with a mental health need between 6pm – 11pm 7 days a week including bank holidays. The café provides a safe place for people to go to who would normally attend A & E for their mental health need as there has never been an alternative.

The crisis café is a real lifeline for some. People that come to the café can get staff or peer support or simply just be.

Congratulations to the Hart and Rushmoor Wellbeing Centre who won the Good Ideas award at the 2014 mcch awards.

What is a tenancy?Nicola Bowen Head of Tenant Services

A tenancy is a legal estate in land. It gives you rights and responsibilities. There are different types of tenancies.

The benefits of having a tenancy are that you have some security and the landlord cannot just ask you to leave your home without a good reason.

A tenancy agreement is a contract between you and your landlord. It lets you live in a property as long as you pay rent and follow the rules. It also sets out the legal terms and conditions of your tenancy.

Our housing handbook

We have made a new housing handbook. The handbook is displayed in every property. It gives lots of useful information to help the people we support with their tenancy. It has information about how to pay rent, reporting repairs, contacting our housing officers, dealing with problems with neighbours and useful telephone numbers.

Get invoved and have your say

We are always looking for people who use our housing services to get involved in shaping the way we do things. If you have an interest in housing and feel that you could spare some time please contact Nicola:

01622 722482

n.bowen@mcch.org.uk

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Thank you for your help

After their great work earlier this year DSH chartered accountants and business advisors returned to the Live it Well centre in Maidstone volunteering their time to help tidy the garden. They got stuck in doing some weeding, strimming and hedge cutting to tackle the most overgrown parts of the garden.

To celebrate the opening of their new store and community rooms, Tesco Extra in Ashford made a donation of £500 to our Live it Well centre as part of the continued support of the local community.

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Thank you to Process Benchmarking for their donation of £850 for our Tuck by Truck enterprise in Bexley. They visited the service to meet the people who work there and see how it is run.

We were thrilled that our Prudential RideLondon-Surrey 100 riders John and Richard both completed the 100 mile bike ride. John completed the ride in 7 hours 19 minutes and Richard in 5 hours 12 minutes.

The money raised will be used to buy sensory equipment for our autism london accomodation service.

Emma Cassley Fundraising Manager

Richard John

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Green fingersEvery year we run a gardening competition for our services. It encourages people to improve their outside spaces and recognises their great work.

There were 22 entries and everyone who entered received a free compost bin and some Flanders Fields poppy seeds.

The competition was judged by Chairman Ann Cooke, Vice-Chairman Philip Sayer and staff from across mcch.

Ken Boyce Centre were this year’s winners. They transformed their outside space into a sensory garden using materials that were donated to them by the local community. The people we support were involved every step of the way during the garden’s transformation.

A full list of the winners can be viewed on our website: www.mcch.org.uk

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London Road

Ken Boyce Centre

Making the step a little easier

If you have taken time off because of mental ill-health, going back to work can play an important part in your recovery. It can feel scary for some, and that’s why employment services like Aspirations can really help.

We support people to manage their return to work at their own pace. We can also support people to decide whether to disclose issues they have with their mental health. Often we work with employers to help them understand the individual’s issues and concerns.

Employers may make ‘reasonable adjustments’ to areas like working hours, duties and responsibilities so that the individual can return to work successfully.

I’m pleased to say that most employers we have worked with are very understanding about mental health needs and value our support. Also, we have good working relationships with many HR departments including larger companies like Saga and Asda.

Returning to work

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For more information about mcch Aspirations, call 01303 210376 or visit our website: www.mcch.org.uk/employment

Paul HeadTeam Leader Aspirations Folkestone

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Signpost UK offers support to people who have a personal budget for their mental health needs.

Signpost UK can help you find information, tools and the support needed to improve your mental wellbeing. At Signpost UK you are provided with a quality assured support broker who will work with you directly.

Your support broker will work with you on how to spend your personal budget and get the life you want.

They can then support you to create a support plan that shows how you would use your budget to get the right support that meets your social care needs.

Here are some of the social care needs that we work towards:

• Get out of the house and be less isolated.

• Gain confidence and self esteem.

• Reduce stress and anxiety.

• Develop support networks.

• Improve their mood.

Finding the right support

Katy Hickey Signpost UK

To find out more about Signpost UK visit:www.signpostuk.org

Who says support planning needs to be form filling?

Teresa

For some people filling out a support plan can feel very restrictive. You have to fit everything you want to do into small boxes. Teresa decided to complete her support plan in her own way. Instead of using a form she used pictures.

Chris, my broker at Signpost UK, made it clear that the support plan itself could be in any format as long as it provided the information needed. After all, it’s no use filling in a form if forms are something you struggle to use.

Everywhere I looked for inspiration I found a list of questions and couldn’t find an example of a creative support plan. I decided to change this. I wanted my support plan to reflect my personality so the person reading it could see what I was like and understand why I had chosen to spend my budget in the way I described.

A support plan should reflect your personality, your wants and needs. I chose to use a sheet of A3 paper, get out my crayons and draw my support plan. I chose to do this as I felt it was the most honest way of portraying my needs, I added quotes which inspire me and used bright colours for each of the boxes.

Read more of Teresa’s story on our website: www.mcch.org.uk

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Are you looking for support? Call us free on 0800 028 28 15

facebook.com/mcchcharity

twitter.com/mcchcharity

mcch One Hermitage Court Hermitage Lane Maidstone Kent ME16 9NT

t. 01622 722400 f. 01622 722450 www.mcch.org.uk

mcch is a registered charity number 1156486 and a company limited by guarantee (registered in England and Wales number 8971493).

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