18 February 2010

Charities Minister, Angela Smith, visited The Roby in Manchester today to see first hand how they are using Government funding to help younger and older volunteers address mental health issues in their community.

The Roby, a local community centre, received funding of £35,000 as part of the Government’s £5.5 million Generations Together programme which aims to promote volunteering between younger and older generations to tackle local issues.

On her visit, the Minister witnessed the launch of three new mental health projects which are being provided through the funding. The projects include training courses aimed to equip groups of older and younger people with advocacy skills, understanding of mental well-being and illness and the confidence to support others with mental health issues within their communities.

She met with staff, volunteers and participants in the projects and joined a workshop which was exploring the issues that affect an individual’s mental health.

Angela Smith, said:

“It has been great to see how The Roby Mental Health Project is helping people in Manchester. It is an excellent example of bringing older and younger generations together to tackle issues within their community.

“It’s been truly inspiring to meet the staff, volunteers and participants of the project and witness first hand how the education, training and volunteering opportunities they provide are helping those with mental health problems in their local area.”

Cllr Rosa Battle, Assistant Executive Member and lead for intergenerational work at Manchester City Council, said:

“We are delighted that the Minister is visiting The Roby because it has been a mainstay in the community for 20 years, supporting residents with their mental health and general well-being. Not only is it a therapeutic environment, but it also brings together younger and older people from some of the most excluded communities, allowing for shared experiences alongside practical support including counselling.”

The ‘Generations Together’ programme, aims to break down barriers between young people and older people and help them engage with each other on equal terms through mutually beneficial voluntary projects.

The projects bring together young people and other members of the community to build trust and understanding, develop community solutions to issues which concern both groups, promote health and wellbeing and resolve tensions by helping to address negative perceptions of young and older people alike.

Dear All,

Firstly, I’d like to take this opportunity to wish all our service users, volunteers, staff, partners and trustees all the best for 2010.

As we enter a new decade The Roby has arrived at a milestone in its significant and impressive history. From here on there are a myriad of potential paths to lead us forward into the future.

The Roby has, for the last twenty years, provided essential services to people living in Longsight and the surrounding area, to those with severe and enduring mental health conditions, to refugee and asylum seekers, to members of the South Asian community and Parents (guardians) and their children.

It has achieved this through engaging with the local community, listening to its service users, supporting the creativity of its staff and volunteers and through building exceptional relationships with funders.  It is this history and continued success that led the organisation to win a highly competitive Big Lottery Grant from its “Reaching Communities” funding programme.  This new significant increase provided the funding for my post, a BME Men’s Development / Group Worker and a French Speaking Counsellor, with a significant contribution to our running costs.  The main outcomes that the grant and the 2008 business plan set out to achieve were to position the organisation to effectively respond to the threats and opportunities of Public Sector commissioning.  The Roby was under notice that its long standing grant from Manchester’s Joint Commissioning Executive was to be decommissioned under the plan to revolutionise Manchester’s Mental Health Primary Care Services.

During the last year, The Roby, like many small charities has been under considerable stress and strain brought about by the current economic climate and fears of operating in a commissioned / contractual environment.  However, we have extremely strong products and services, operate under excellent ethics and codes of practices and will continue to strive to provide the best level of service to support the personal growth and continued development of our service users and be the safety net for many who come to us in extreme need.  We do this daily through our counselling service, group therapies, South Asian Women and Men’s Groups, our open door Drop In and our Parent and Toddlers Group.  We will continue to do this and have attracted funding from the Targeted Support Fund to invest in our Counselling Service through additional counselling hours and support for volunteer counsellors and will have invested in 8 members of staff and volunteers from throughout the organisation to learn new skills and techniques using Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT).

We have also attracted funding from the national Generations Together programme through Manchester City Council making The Roby an important pilot site for cross generational projects specifically focussing on well-being. We have used this funding to invest in a new Recovery Services Manager, alongside which we will create a pool of Community Peer Support Volunteers (who have personal experience of mental health conditions) who will be trained to be effective advocates and will provide practical and social support to Roby’s service users.  We will also be matching up younger and older people and researching the differences, similarities and gained understanding that these pairings can bring between generations.  Our new Recovery Services Manager, Phil Girling, will be creating a workshop specifically focussed on personal development, growth and supporting individuals to improve confidence and gain or retain control over their well-being.  Our new Recovery Service will be aligned with our BME / Social Inclusion Services and Counselling Services, providing an internal stepped care model for anyone that comes to The Roby.

Over the last year we lost some great assets whom have been with The Roby for a number of years.  I would like to take this opportunity to personally thank them on behalf of the charity: Cath Fitchett (Volunteer and Staff Counsellor), Vicky Gilibrand (Trustee), Ivona Skrkankova (Volunteer Counsellor), Shabana Baig (Volunteer Counsellor but still active in the South Asian Women’s Group), Mobeen Zahoor (BME Men’s Group Volunteer who has left us for employment and study), Akbar Jamil (BME Men’s Group Volunteer).  The Roby has also gained new staff members and I’d like to personally wish them well in their new endeavours on behalf of The Roby: Philip Girling (Transition and Recovery Services Manager), Nabil Ahmed (BME Men’s Development / Group Worker), Jawad Mahboob (Trustee), Olivia (Drop In & Parent and Toddlers Kitchen Volunteer) alongside the four volunteer counsellors who have moved into paid counselling positions.  I would also like to wish our 4 new volunteer counsellors and 6 new student counsellors a warm welcome to The Roby.

We can only provide our services through the commitment and dedication of our team of staff and volunteers and I thank everyone who has put a little bit of their heart into The Roby.

The next year continues to offer us and many small charities a number of challenges that we must be ready to respond to. Details have still not been agreed regarding the commissioning of Primary Care Mental Health Services, but the ‘writing on the wall’ is that for any funding given, more extensive reporting and accountability will be required.  Grant funders are reporting a significant increase in demand from charities and only have finite resources to respond.  We need to ensure that our own services are meeting and will meet the needs of our current service users and those people in our local community that might not be accessing our services yet but could benefit from our support.  We also need to ensure that our new premises are fit for purpose and meet the needs of service users, staff and volunteers.

However the next year is also full of opportunities.  We have just been awarded a small grant from Manchester City Council’s Longsight Ward to open up the doors of the Roby URC from Monday to Friday between 8:30am till 9:30am for a Breakfast Club, providing a free breakfast, opportunity to socialise and also access support if needed.  We will be launching this in late Spring and will be providing volunteering opportunities in the Kitchen to people from the local community and service users.  There are a number of partnerships (existing and being developed) that could significantly enhance our offer of services to those in need including a Social Media Centre in the Levenshulme Inspire Centre, launcing of a recovery model and continued delivery of Mental Health First Aid throughout Manchester with our strategic partners HARP and Mind in Manchester.  We will continue to make links with other BME organisations and continue investing in our successful relationship with the Black Health Agency to be creative in tackling issues of social exclusion and its impact on health and well-being.

Throughout the year it is also vital to ensure the sustained and continued investment in all of our current services and to ensure that we continue to provide a relevant quality service. We are currently devising plans for Trustee Board approval to set up a Services Management And Resources Team (SMART) which will include representatives from Service Users, Volunteers, Staff and Trustee Board to discuss operational and management issues and ideas for the Roby as a whole.

There will also be extensive fundraising over this period. I am about to enter my name to take part in the Greater Manchester 10K run in May 2010 to raise funds for The Roby.  If I complete it in less than 60 minutes (my previous attempts have been 74 and 71 minutes) I’ll also donate an extra £100!  If anyone would like to do the 10K run with me and raise funds for The Roby, then please let me know.

So all in all, it sounds like another busy year with many challenges with a real sense that we will continue to do great things and meet the growing needs of our neighbours and friends.

Happy New Year and all best wishes for 2010!

Ben Crouch
Director

The funding allows us to provide basic breakfast food and drinks (with a healthy focus, but with the odd Bacon Butty available as a treat) but we will be relying on volunteers to staff the kitchen, help with preparing breakfast, cooking, serving and providing hot and cold drinks and smoothies.

The Roby is a mental health and well-being charity based in Longsight with our community centre in the Roby United Reform Church on Dickenson Road and we provide essential services to individuals living with mental health conditions, rough sleepers and people living in sheltered / supported housing, people with drug and alcohol issues, refugee and asylum seekers and many others.  We are a welcoming organisation that takes an active stance in tackling social exclusion.

If you are interested in volunteering your time for this project, please complete the online survey (link attached) to provide us with your contact details, indicate what areas you are interested in contributing too and we will get in touch to meet with you.

THE SURVEY LINK IS:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/DC9JWHX

The planned launch of the Breakfast Club is 1st March 2010.

If you could promote this opportunity through your friends, family, colleagues and other networks we would be extremely grateful.  A poster for volunteer recruitment is attached.

Happy New Year!

As some of you know, I’ve recently been trained as an instructor in Mental Health First Aid to deliver training courses.  With my colleague Debbie from YASP, we have recently completed our first four half-day training sessions and have let loose six Mental Health First Aiders to intervene and support individuals experiencing mental health problems in Manchester.

Feedback from the group, made up of staff and volunteers from The Roby and HARP ,was excellent and all found the materials hugely useful, providing them with background information into mental health, well-being and recovery. The course enhanced group confidence in discerning some of the symptoms of different types of mental illness, what the most effective ways to provide support to someone in distress are, whilst looking after oneself and remaining calm and confident.

The day after the participants were recognised as accredited Mental Health First Aiders, one of the participants, a volunteer at the HARP Café, had to put his new found knowledge and skills into practice when a woman arrived at the café upset and extremely distressed.  He handled the situation completely differently post-training; with new found confidence he ensured she was safe and listened to, giving her the opportunity to calm down and feel relaxed so that she was able to take the next step forward. WELL DONE EDDIE!  You made a real difference to that woman and I’m sure she is extremely grateful.  I’m also sure our other MHFAs will be doing an excellent job too.

This is a stark difference to the treatment of one of our service users at our local Job Centre Plus.  He’s been suffering from depression for the last eight weeks which has been so severe that he’s not been bothering to eat for days, has stayed in bed for up to four days at a time and recently came to our Drop-In in severe distress.  Due to his depression he’s not managed to sign on, yet is also too proud to visit his GP and discuss his current inability to cope with his life as he thinks his GP will see him as a failure.  He tried to explain his illness and its impact on his ability to sign on to the floor staff at the JCP, but they wouldn’t listen to him. Agitated and anxious he lost his temper and kicked a door in frustration; he was promptly escorted off the premises and barred from entering.

His self-care is obviously being affected and, because he hasn’t signed on, his benefits have been stopped so he is currently under threat of an eviction order and has no money for food.

So what could happen now after a failed attempt at accessing support from the Job Centre?  His depression could worsen and he could be evicted and end up sleeping rough on the streets; the stress of this may escalate his depression into a psychotic episode, he may end up being sectioned and put on a ward (at a huge expense I might add), or it may all get too much for him.

Since accessing the Roby, we have listened to him. We’ve encouraged him to see an Advice Worker at HARP’s Advice Service held every Wednesday (which he did and found very helpful) and he’s been encouraged to see his GP (huge sense of pride and fear of a potential medical diagnosis leave him extremely resistant).  I’m still extremely worried about his eviction order but am hopeful our interventions will be timely enough to ensure that this is prevented.

I wish all our public services would tackle the barriers that exclude the essential support that we all can need from time to time in our lives.  If people feel listened to, encouraged and in moments of real human need, treated like HUMANS, would we still be facing the myriad of problems that currently affect our daily lives?

If we strived to create opportunities for those that need them, and recognised that life when you’re down is extremely difficult (even the simplest act of getting out of bed or making a phone call) what would this look like? If we invested in positive interventions and reflected upon the consequences of our actions rather than closing doors, what could this mean?  Would you expect someone with a debilitating physical illness to keep their life in order with no additional support? We frequently do for those experiencing mental health problems even though they are less likely to obtain a medical diagnosis and may have less support from friends and family.

As Manchester and the country continue to deal with the recession on a daily basis, the need of our neighbours will continue to grow.  This won’t change in the near future.  What needs to change is the way we all respond.

Listen, don’t judge and encourage.  It is a simple message but the benefits for us all will, unmistakably, be so much better.

Ben Crouch
Director
The Roby

We will be distributing our annual report for 2008/09 and I will be taking people through some of the developments that we are currently implementing and planning for The Roby and its service users.

If you would like to attend please RVSP and contact us on 0161 257 2653.

Refreshments will be provided.

We hope to see you at The Roby, 307 Dickenson Road, Longsight, M13 0NG on the day.

Kind regards,

Ben Crouch
Director

Transition and Recovery Services Manager

NJC scale point 37

£29,728 – £30,456 (pay award pending)

35 hours / week.

The post holder will lead in the creation and delivery of innovative and person centred recovery services, spaces and activities that practically and emotionally support our service users’ (SU) develop their own transition and recovery through any personal mental health issues.  Recovery will be a strategic theme of The Roby’s services, delivered alongside a programme of well-being services and activities, our respected spaces for BME groups, and our well established and culturally diverse Counselling Service supporting an accessible stepped care model of delivery.

Closing dates for applications: 12:30 on 17^th Sept 2009

Interview date: 30^th Sept 2009

Counselling Services Development Manager

NJC scale point 37

£29,728 – £30,456 pro rata

17.5 hours / week.

Fixed Term Contract – end 31^st March 2010

The Roby is investing in this fixed term contract position which will support it in positioning its Counselling Services to be 100% ‘business ready’ for the current and future funding opportunities of tendering for contracts, practice based commissioning and the personalisation of services.  This will be achieved through assessment, design and implementation of improvements to our current service and consulting with our internal team and external partners.

Closing dates for applications: 12:30 on 17^th Sept 2009

Interview date: 28^th Sept 2009

BME Men’s Development / Group Worker

NJC scale point 28

£22,845 – £23,405 pro rata (pay award pending)

17.5 hours / week.

To manage the existing South Asian Men’s group and through extensive service user involvement and liaison with partner organisations, develop activities and services to support the mental health and well-being needs for this target BME group.  Research needs both through existing service users and importantly those not accessing services through extensive community development and partnership working.

Closing dates for applications: 12:30 on 24^th Sept 2009

Interview date: 9^th Oct 2009

All enquiries for an application pack to:

Mrs Sajida Khan

The Roby, 307 Dickenson Road, Longsight, Manchester M13 ONG

Telephone: 0161 257 2653

E mail request to: info@theroby.org.uk

Website: www.theroby.org.uk

Registered Charity No 1125711;      Limited Company   No. 6422564;    Registered in England and Wales

Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) is the help given to someone experiencing a mental health problem before professional help is attained (in the same way that First Aid does for physical health problems).

The training is a nationally accredited, 12 hour course, done over 2 days. It aims to enable participants to recognise the symptoms of different mental health conditions and give them confidence in dealing with them and to know where and how to refer people to appropriate services. You do not need to have knowledge of mental ill health to benefit from this training.

It’s estimated that in Manchester 1 in 4 of us will experience mental ill health at some point in our lives.  This course would be of particular benefit to those people working with vulnerable people in any setting, who would like to gain a better understand of mental health issues in order to improve the service they are able to deliver and to know how to identify and respond appropriately when the people they work with present with mental health issues. It would also be of benefit to  anyone with line management or HR responsibilities, who would like to improve the support they are able to offer to employees who experience ill mental health.

The Delivering Inclusion Network is now able to provide MHFA training in Manchester.  The first round of courses will be delivered in community venues across the city in October:

• Thursday 1^st & 8^th October at Northmoor Community Centre, Longsight
• Wednesday 14th & Thursday 15^th at Cornbrook Enterprise Centre, Hulme
• Tuesday 27^th and Wednesday 28^th at Zion Arts Centre, Hulme

Places are available at the introductory rate of £100 per person (Voluntary Sector) or £125 per person public/private sector (further discounts available for in-house training, block bookings and volunteers)

To find out more about the training or to book a place contact Megan Ohri 0161 832 2215 or email megan@harp-project.org

Our aim is to tackle stigma across generations and raise awareness of mental health and well-being, and enabling mixed groups  to deliver practical solutions for their own or shared issues and to train and coordinate volunteers to support other service users from different generation on an issue(s) affecting their mental well-being.

This is a great opportunity for The Roby and our service users and we excited about the possible benefits that this way of working could achieve.

For further info:

http://nds.coi.gov.uk/Content/Detail.aspx?NewsAreaId=2&ReleaseID=405166&SubjectId=3

or

Beth Johnson Foundation – http://www.bjf.org.uk

The Roby and People’s Voice Media want to work in partnership to provide Community Reporter training to mental health service users and people suffering from stress, anxiety, depression and / or that are currently not in employment which is affecting their mental well-being.

You are invited to a session where we will present our project idea and invite your feedback and input on how this project should be developed, how you’d like it work and how you might like to get involved!

The Community Reporters’ programme will give individuals training in:

• Interview skills
• Working in small teams
• Using video / audio equipment
• Creating a media campaign
• Using social networking technology for individual and groups benefits

You are invited to The Roby on the 12^th August 2009 at 17:30 to meet a current Community Reporter, Teresa Wilson (People’s Voice Media) and Ben Crouch (The Roby).  Please RSVP to: info@theroby.org.uk or 0161 257 2653.  Refreshments will be provided.