Organisation Name:Chard Intentional Peer Support
Group Contact name: Julie
Matthews Job title: Group
Co-ordinator Email: matthewsj07@aol.com or
chardpeergroup@yahoo.co.uk Telephone: 07506238540
Websites: Chard Town Council , Recovery Devon
I have been a service user in Mental Health services for some 20 years. In April 2007 various NHS Trusts and organisations linked together to train 35 service users across Somerset, Cornwall and Devon to train in Intentional Peer Support. Shery Mead (see www.mentalhealthpeers.com) came over from America with Chris Hansen to provide a one week residential course for us to learn about this type of peer support. I completed the training and went back to our day centre and persuaded a couple of other service users with me to form an Intentional Peer Support Group. We managed to secure a small grant from Somerset Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (see their website about us too) and ran a group for a year whilst applying for other grants to fund our accommodation. We got a £7,000 pound grant from Somerset Skills and Learning (SS&L) (see their website) with the Neighbourhood Learning in Deprived Communities Grant and this helped us put on various courses.
With support from their widening participation Team we learnt how to book our own educational courses with tutors and then encouraged other day service members to use this training too. This helped us gain confidence and was very empowering.
The following year we received another grant from SS&L and designed a mosaic which was then put up in Holly Court hospital, Yeovil, which was very encouraging for us. All this helped motivate us more and we then applied and gained many more grants which enabled us to rent our own office. We took on volunteers which helped our project and raised over £20,000.
Our group has its ups and downs but by challenging each other we are able to create a safe learning environment where we are starting to tackle our old negative beliefs and learning how to relate better which is beginning to show signs of us forming new relationships within our community.
During all of our training one of our members went onto accessing college and gained a diploma and other members have furthered their educational attainment by partaking in creative writing and art courses. This year we have gained many more grants and the final grant we have just received is for us to work on a social inclusion project. We have rented large enough rooms to encourage other groups to join us. i.e. a disability group, migrant workers group etc.
This is a one day a week project whereby we are planning to do healthy cooking, talks, personal awareness courses, accessing the internet, art, creative writing etc. By all working together we are hoping to become cohesive and part of the community.
We have made good contact with other organisations and have a good relationship with our Town council and other excellent projects within Somerset.
Our aim with our new grant is that we run this project for a year and then form a committee of group leaders and organisations to become a social enterprise which will enable us to be involved with our community. We feel this is cost effective and the main point of this is that we are doing this for ourselves which empowers us and makes us feel more personally responsible for our lives. It means we have a say in what we do which helps us feel connected with a sense of belonging. Hopefully our days of isolation will become and thing of the past.
We feel we are able to put something back into the community for example November 10th 2010 we are putting on an event called ‘Breakdown to Breakthrough', breaking down the barriers of Mental illness. We have a variety of speakers who are speaking about the stigma of living with a mental health problem and we are hoping that people who attend will start to understand how stigma can get in the way and keep us isolated within our own community.
Recently we were offered an information desk at the reception of our town hall, free of charge and are providing a mental health information point where we help signpost people to services that could help them with mental health issues.
Since starting our project I feel I have been on an amazing learning curve and have found accepting support from organisations that help with advice and grants totally inspiring. From being isolated and depressed I am nearly back into employment and feeling there is a world of possibilities out there for me
What have been the benefits for individual service users (and others) accessing your project?
One of the profound things I noticed in the group was the benefit of the peer support helping each other feel less nervous about courses, this encouragement and sharing of experiences helped us go on courses which we would never have done on our own. It has been amazing watching one person in particular burst in to tears when filling out an enrolment form and then go on to be offered a place as a volunteer with the local Red Cross. Another person had never uncovered their learning problems and since understanding they had dyslexia has just completed a food hygiene course and hopes to cook in our inclusion project. We have been out as a group and spent a day working at our project planting vegetables and cutting back bracken which was great fun and helped alleviate some of our depression, great times!
Are you considering any future developments in response to the ‘Personalisation' agenda?
Yes, on November 4th we commence our W.A.T.C.H project (Working all together in Chard). We have raised our own money for our own centre bringing others together with us so we are not alone, enabling us to sharing our knowledge together. At the centre we also plan to do various projects, for example today a project came in to tell us about funds they had received to create an inter generational initiative whereby they want under young people under 25 to work with people over 50 to produce individual films of stories about their lives. This will be great at bringing young and old together as well as listening to stories of migrant workers coming to another country. The CDs produced will be shown in schools etc helping other people to understand the lives of others.
Keywords: peer support, training,