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NSUN Bulletin: 18.6.10

FREE Seminar: Social Care Mental Health Research Seminar

06 July 2010 9.30am – 1.30pm at Birmingham and Midland Institute, 9 Margaret Street, Birmingham B3 3BS

The Heart of England Hub is part of the NIHR Mental Health Research Network whose overall objective is to “provide the infrastructure to support large scale, high quality research in mental health and social care”.

I would like to invite you to a seminar on developing Social Care research within the region. We are particularly hoping to encourage more ‘home-grown’ research projects.

The seminar aims to bring together interested academics, practitioners, managers, service users and carers in order to identify emerging areas of interest – with a view to setting up working groups to take these ideas forward and turn them into potential bids for research funding.

To start the ball rolling, we will have brief presentations on two topics of current interest:

· Personalisation – this is a priority area for research nationally and a lot of innovative work is taking place across the region, including some pilots of health and social care budgets. Sarah Carr from the Social Care Institute for Excellence will be joining us to give a national overview of research and practice development in this area – and identify aspects where further research may be most needed

· Social identities and sense of self – this has emerged as a theme from a recent service user research workshop and links to wider research interest around issues of stigma (and how to resist this), and how reclaiming a positive self-identity seems to be central to many people’s recovery.

There will also be plenty of opportunity to share and develop other ideas. If you have a particular area of interest, please let me know in advance and we may be able to offer a discussion group around this. A more detailed programme will be circulated nearer to the event.

I hope that you may be able to come. If you know of other colleagues within your organisation who you think might wish to be involved, please feel free to pass on this invitation.

The event is free of charge.

If you would like to reserve a place, please contact Rekha Keshvara on 0121 301 4338, HeartofEnglandHub@bsmhft.nhs.uk

Information: Time To Change

Organising a Time to Get Moving event is a great way of tackling stigma.

And this year, we’re thinking big. We aim to involve 84,000 people – so we’re geared up to give you all the help you need to engage more people. We have extra packages of support available to organisations running events that will reach more than 500 people.

Last year, NHS Greenwich found that the success of Time to Get Moving generated great media coverage. It also provided an opportunity to involve local residents who had experience of mental health problems and offer them a voice. And someone who attended the Time to Get Moving event in Greenwich said:

“We had so much fun together with the line dancing, hula-hooping and jive dancing. And I also learnt more about mental health, which I had maybe been a bit ignorant about.”

Read more about what happened in Greenwich including some top tips. »

We’ve got lots of handy resources to help you:

Download our event planner for advice, or call our event line on 020 7034 2772. And make sure you register your event online, to get your free package of materials and support.

Arts: Mental Health Writers Club

Mental Health Writers Club

Short Story & Poetry Writing 1pm – 4pm

At The Wolverhampton Voluntary Sector Council, 16 Temple Street, Wolverhampton WV2 4AN

Autumn Term: 1.10.10 / 15.10.10 / 5.11.10 / 19.11.10 / 3.12.10

Spring Term: 14.1.11 / 28.1.11 / 11.2.11 / 25.2.11 / 11.3.11

Summer Term: 25.3.11 / 8.4.11 / 29.4.11 / 13.5.11 / 27.5.11

Please bring proof of Identity, address and receipt of a Means Tested Benefit to receive full fee remission

Creative Writing Classes delivered by The Workers Education Association

Working in Partnership with Reach Out-OCD 2010

Telephone: 01902 328978

Amanda Williams or Diane Drew

Event: What Next? The Future of Voluntary and Community Action (NCIA)

Friday 9th July

10.30am – 4.30 pm

St Martin in the Fields, Trafalgar Square, London

The National Coalition of Independent Action is a national network of people who are concerned about changes affecting the voluntary and community sector, including cuts, commissioning, increasing privatisation of services and ‘new managerialism’ (hierarchical management practices imported from the private sector).

NCIA is holding and event Friday 9th July in St Martin in the Fields in Trafalgar Square, where you can go and talk to others about what’s going on for all of us and how we feel about it. It’s a joint event between NCIA and London Voluntary Service Council (LVSC)’s STAN network for development workers. Anyone with an interest is welcome and there will also be an excellent free lunch!

This event is an open space meeting (a creative meeting format in which participants define the agenda and adjust it as the meeting proceeds) for voluntary sector workers and volunteers, community activists and interested people to explore anything they like about their experiences, their current concerns and their hopes for the future. There will be opportunities to make connections and feed into other research groups about specific issues.

The event is free of charge and booking is essential

visit: http://july9.wordpress.com/

email: gemma@lvsc.org.uk

call: 020 3349 8919

http://www.independentaction.net/

News: Sustainable Funding Project (NCVO)

Worried about March 2011?

We are updating our resources to support you to take action.

If you are looking for unrestricted income to plug a potential hole in grants or contracts then you might want to consider...

* The Gift Economy: We have just re-vamped our section on donations, including a guide to individual giving, corporate giving, legacies and in-memoriam giving and community fundraising. Visit the section here Even if you have previously discounted this method of raising income, it is worth reading the overviews to check your assumptions.

* Trading: We've noticed a big increase in the number of organisations looking to earn money through trading. This could be trading to support your mission or simply profit driven. Read our section on the website about trading. We also have a great publication that takes you through what's involved in a very interactive and accessible way - find out more about the Good Guide To Trading.

* Make it Happen: If you understand the basics behind sustainable funding but are struggling to create a workable strategy for your organisation, then we are once again running our popular new event, Make It Happen, on 14th July, here at NCVO in London. It is aimed at making sure you can take practical, effective action to secure sustainable income for your organisation. If you are not in London then we are planning to offer this event in other locations over the next few months.

If you are facing a funding crisis in March 2011 we would urge you to take action now - all new initiatives and strategies take time to generate income. If you want to learn about a new funding stream then you can apply for a bursary from Only Connect to visit another organisation. The next deadline is 11th June. www.ncvo-vol.org.uk/onlyconnect

FREE Learning Event: Volunteering and the Big Society

Date: Thursday 1 July 2010

Time: 10:30 - 13:00 (Registration will be from 10:00 for an 10:30am start)

Location: Room 102A, Skipton House, 80 London Road, London, SE1 6LH

The Department of Health will be holding a FREE Learning Event to look at how volunteering might fit in light of the Government's vision for a Big Society.

How to book a place:

To hold a place at this event, please email vcsmail@dh.gsi.gov.uk and clearly state your name, organisation details, email address and phone number.

Further information about this event, along with a formal programme will be sent out in early June - this communication is to allow you to register your interest and get the date into diaries.

Please let us know if you have any special requirements such as an induction loop in the first possible instance.

Reminder:

If you wish to receive email communications from the Department of Health's Third Sector Partnership Team, please register your details as soon as possible at the link below:

http://www.info.doh.gov.uk/questionnaire/third_sector.nsf

Funding: Promote Financial Inclusion

The Friends Provident Foundation makes grants of up to £200,000 to not-for profit organisations for projects that address financial exclusion within disadvantaged communities. The funding is distributed through the Financial Inclusion Programme 2009-2012. The Foundation will consider applications for work that will make a strategic contribution to the overall outcome of financial inclusion in the UK. The Foundation will consider requests for capital or revenue funding, core funds or project costs. The Foundation is willing to consider applications from any type of legally independent organisation, but can only support work that is legally charitable. Actions previously supported through the Foundation include; making money management advice available to young people via mobile phones and interactive digital TV; a research project to look at the difficulties that people with a learning disability are having in gaining access to banking services. The next closing date for applications is the 30th July 2010.

www.friendsprovidentfoundation.org

Funding: Live UnLtd(UK)

UnLtd, the charity for social entrepreneurs, is inviting young people between the age of 11 and 25, who have a passion and talent to change the world around them, to apply through Live UnLtd for a grant of up to £2,000 to start up their own business, sports teams, recreational groups and host events. Live UnLtd will also offer support to help with the running of the project. Projects supported in the past include; 'Food Cycle' - a venture which combines young volunteers surplus food and free kitchen space to create a nutritious meals for people affected by food poverty; A Street-culture magazine for the Youth of London, with the content for the magazine being entirely produced by young people who are also given the mentorship of professionals in creative media. For more details please click on the 'More' link.

www.liveunltd.com

Research: Orygen Youth Health Research Centre

A new study by Orygen Youth Health Research Centre is investigating the potential of the internet to help prevent depression. The Mood Memos study is an email-based mental health promotion campaign targeting people suffering some depression symptoms, who are at great risk of worsening into full depression. Mood memos are emails delivered every few days over a period of six weeks, bringing expert coping advice and information about depression directly to email inboxes. The aim is to improve depression symptoms and help prevent the descent into major depressive disorder.

The Mood Memos study is open to participants around the world until November 2010. The study is ideal for those who want to know more about how to help themselves feel better or want more information about depression. Participation is free and all data is confidential. Recruitment to the study is managed online, so those interested in taking part should visit the website to sign up http://www.moodmemos.com or email info@moodmemos.com.

Newsletter: Patient Opinion

The latest Patient Opinion newsletter that includes:

· The introduction of the new, and simple, way for services to demonstrate how they’re using patient, service user and carer feedback to improve their services.

· The national conference, Out of the Box, which is only days away now. It will bring together some amazing people and organisations to think about how patients, service users and carers are using the web to change to their lives and their services.

Patient Opinion newsletter, June issue:

http://www.patientopinion.org.uk/info/newsletters

Please let Patient Opinion know if you have any feedback about the newsletter or the feedback service itself.

Information: IIMHL AND IIDL UPDATE –15.6.10

Person Centred: What is it Really?

This small research paper published by Uniting Care in Australia raises some important issues on what might authentic person centred services look like. It looks at the questions of:

§ What does person-centred mean?

§ What has person-centred got to do with social justice?

§ Why would we see being person-centred as important?

The underlying assumptions of person-centred thinking are that we will serve people better by knowing and responding to the individual in context. Our responses will be aided by not just person-centred planning but by our whole efforts being focused on each and every person.

Person-centredness refers to using values-based skills and approaches in designing and delivering service responses to address specific needs of individuals in their unique context.

To read this paper, please click on the following link:

http://www.vision6.com.au/em/message/email/view.php?u=24256&id=402068

For a free subscription and membership please visit www.iimhl.com

If you would like to include any information in future NSUN bulletins or you have feedback on content and style please email info@nsun.org.uk or telephone

0845 602 0779

National Survivor User Network

27-29 Vauxhall Grove, Vauxhall, London, SW8 1SY

Registered charity no. 1135980. Company Registration no. 7166851.

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