Radio Sparky: December 2020 podcast

Listen to our latest edition of Radio Sparky, the podcast which shines the spotlight on the excellent work happening at Richmond Fellowship services across the country.

In December’s edition, Matt Webb, Communications and Marketing Officer speaks to Jessica Fish, Area Manager of Richmond Fellowship’s Lancashire services about her journey through the charity to becoming an Area Manager, how her services have been managing during the coronavirus pandemic and about a new Social Enterprise element to our Central Lancashire Haven.

‘The way in which the Service Managers and the Recovery Workers adapted, the way that they worked was incredible. Going from doing all face to face visits or support sessions to everything being virtual, learning how to use new platforms to delivering those sessions and also supporting people that use our services to access those virtual platforms’. – Jessica Fish, Area Manager.

Recovery Worker Week 2020 round-up

As one of the largest voluntary sector providers of mental health support in England, our frontline staff are critical to our work and the wellbeing of the people we support.

Our frontline staff have gone above and beyond this year during the Covid-19 pandemic and we’ve been shining the spotlight on what they do with a dedicated week on our social media.

During Recovery Worker Week (16-20 November) we shared a blog from Jo, our North Head of Operations about her visits to services during the Covid-19 pandemic and the excellent work she witnessed first-hand during these challenging times.

‘Our frontline workers have continued to go into their workplace and adapted their home life to ensure they are as safe as they can be to continue to support the people that use our services’. – Jo.

Deborah, Service Manager at Willow House in Lancashire wrote a blog about how our Crisis houses have continued to provide care despite the lockdown.

‘I didn’t think I’d face new challenges such as dogs barking over Skype or parrots chirping during a telephone intervention’. – Deborah.

We handed over the reins of our Twitter account to Anna, Crisis Recovery Worker at our Lincolnshire Crisis House. During ‘Recovery Worker Takeover’, Anna tweeted what she was doing across the day to give a flavour of the tasks our frontline staff carry out on a daily basis.

We also shared a range of experiences from our Recovery Workers across the country.

International Men’s Day also fell during Recovery Worker Week (Thursday 19 November), so we used this opportunity to showcase our frontline roles as great careers for men to consider. Rob, Peer Volunteer Co-ordinator at our Wiltshire Recovery and Social Inclusion service explained on video how Richmond Fellowship is a mindful employer for older men in the organisation.

If you’re interested in a career with us, or any of the partners in our Recovery Focus Group of charities, please take a look at our vacancies page by

Recovery Worker Week 2020 round-up

As one of the largest voluntary sector providers of mental health support in England, our frontline staff are critical to our work and the wellbeing of the people we support.

Our frontline staff have gone above and beyond this year during the Covid-19 pandemic and we’ve been shining the spotlight on what they do with a dedicated week on our social media.

During Recovery Worker Week (16-20 November) we shared a blog from Jo, our North Head of Operations about her visits to services during the Covid-19 pandemic and the excellent work she witnessed first-hand during these challenging times.

‘Our frontline workers have continued to go into their workplace and adapted their home life to ensure they are as safe as they can be to continue to support the people that use our services’. – Jo.

Deborah, Service Manager at Willow House in Lancashire wrote a blog about how our Crisis houses have continued to provide care despite the lockdown.

‘I didn’t think I’d face new challenges such as dogs barking over Skype or parrots chirping during a telephone intervention’. – Deborah.

We handed over the reins of our Twitter account to Anna, Crisis Recovery Worker at our Lincolnshire Crisis House. During ‘Recovery Worker Takeover’, Anna tweeted what she was doing across the day to give a flavour of the tasks our frontline staff carry out on a daily basis.

We also shared a range of experiences from our Recovery Workers across the country.

 

 

 

 

International Men’s Day also fell during Recovery Worker Week (Thursday 19 November), so we used this opportunity to showcase our frontline roles as great careers for men to consider. Rob, Peer Volunteer Co-ordinator at our Wiltshire Recovery and Social Inclusion service explained on video how Richmond Fellowship is a mindful employer for older men in the organisation.

If you’re interested in a career with us, or any of the partners in our Recovery Focus Group of charities, please take a look at our vacancies page by clicking here.

Recovery Worker social media takeover

This week we’re dedicating our social media to our frontline staff and the work that they do. On Tuesday Anna, a Recovery Worker in one of our Crisis Houses is taking over our Twitter account to give you a day in the life of her job. Below, she tells us a bit more about herself and her work with Richmond Fellowship.

Hello, my name is Anna and I am currently a recovery worker for the Richmond Fellowship’s Lincolnshire Crisis Service. Although I have only been working here for four months, I am already loving the work! I decided to pursue a career as a recovery worker as – through my university studies in Psychology and seeing family members experience mental ill health – I knew I wanted to help people in psychological distress in any way I could. So when a job post came up for Richmond Fellowship as a Recovery Worker, I applied without a second thought and I am very glad I did. While not every day is the same (which is another thing I love about the job) typically my daily responsibilities include making support plans with people who use our service, and running intervention sessions on a 1-1 or group basis. I’ve conduced interventions on topics as wide ranging as  ‘managing anxiety’ , ‘managing low mood’ , ‘Voice Management’ , ‘Improving Sleep’ and ‘Addictive Behaviours’.

One of my favourite things about the job is that I am able to give interventions and support to people who use our service on topics which I am extremely interested in! But more so, it is that I am able to witness firsthand someone recovering from mental ill health, which feels so good and rewarding, especially because you’ve had some role in their recovery journey.

Working for Richmond Fellowship has gone beyond and above what I expected. Every member of staff, from Recovery Workers to Area Managers is extremely fair, friendly and as passionate about the job. We are kept in the loop about current affairs that may impact our service (e.g. COVID-19) and are always asked for our feedback on the service for improvements to be made, which you really feel is listened to. Furthermore, Richmond Fellowship are always providing training to their staff, including suicide prevention, first aid training and safeguarding. Richmond Fellowship have supported me greatly in allowing me to fulfil my potential as a recovery worker and hopefully a long career in mental health.

You can follow the week, and Anna’s social media takeover, here (https://twitter.com/rfmentalhealth).

Recovery Worker social media takeover

 

This week we’re dedicating our social media to our frontline staff and the work that they do. On Tuesday Anna, a Recovery Worker in one of our Crisis Houses is taking over our Twitter account to give you a day in the life of her job. Below, she tells us a bit more about herself and her work with Richmond Fellowship.

Hello, my name is Anna and I am currently a recovery worker for the Richmond Fellowship’s Lincolnshire Crisis Service. Although I have only been working here for four months, I am already loving the work! I decided to pursue a career as a recovery worker as – through my university studies in Psychology and seeing family members experience mental ill health – I knew I wanted to help people in psychological distress in any way I could. So when a job post came up for Richmond Fellowship as a Recovery Worker, I applied without a second thought and I am very glad I did. While not every day is the same (which is another thing I love about the job) typically my daily responsibilities include making support plans with people who use our service, and running intervention sessions on a 1-1 or group basis. I’ve conduced interventions on topics as wide ranging as  ‘managing anxiety’ , ‘managing low mood’ , ‘Voice Management’ , ‘Improving Sleep’ and ‘Addictive Behaviours’.

One of my favourite things about the job is that I am able to give interventions and support to people who use our service on topics which I am extremely interested in! But more so, it is that I am able to witness firsthand someone recovering from mental ill health, which feels so good and rewarding, especially because you’ve had some role in their recovery journey.

Working for Richmond Fellowship has gone beyond and above what I expected. Every member of staff, from Recovery Workers to Area Managers is extremely fair, friendly and as passionate about the job. We are kept in the loop about current affairs that may impact our service (e.g. COVID-19) and are always asked for our feedback on the service for improvements to be made, which you really feel is listened to. Furthermore, Richmond Fellowship are always providing training to their staff, including suicide prevention, first aid training and safeguarding. Richmond Fellowship have supported me greatly in allowing me to fulfil my potential as a recovery worker and hopefully a long career in mental health.

You can follow the week, and Anna’s social media takeover, here (https://twitter.com/rfmentalhealth).

Radio Sparky – Working Together Week transcript

Radio Sparky is the podcast shining a spotlight on the work happening on the ground in Richmond Fellowship and the wider Recovery Focus Group of charities  – talking direct to staff and people we support.  To mark Working Together Week our Communications and Marketing Officer Matt Webb spoke to Matt and Jordan who use our Supported Housing Service in Stowmarket, Suffolk and the service manager James.Working Together Week

We wanted to find out from them what co-production and Working Together really means in practice, and how they’ve made it part of the service.  You can listen to the episode in full here – but if you want to have a read instead or even as well, we’ve got a transcript for you below!

Matt W: As a member of staff, it is of course working together week, what does co-production mean to you?

James: it means that we are all equal, and we are responsible for running and developing the service.

Matt: How have you managed to instill a co-production model in your service? It must have been quite a tricky thing to do, because you have to get everyone together and plan. How have you been able to make that happen?

James: Back when working together came to fruition in around 2014-15 – we are really fortunate that we have a really good community link worker, Janet, who is able to really push getting people involved in the service. Also, I think leadership is really important, so I really wanted to be quite a role model for that for staff in our services, developing a plan for example about how we are going to implement working together on a practical level.

“For example, changes as a result of that I have seen is that we always include people in the recruitment/interview process, we have people who last year helped to set the annual budget, and we also involved people in the local ways of running the service.”

They have helped formulate our approach to recovery, they have also helped out in the running of groups, and also when we are doing promotional work for mental health day, they will help to do that and run it for the day. But it is really about ensuring that it is embedded in the service and that there is a culture of working together. But also that they have got the skills and feel confident and able to dip in and dip out as they see fit as well, because it is something that you are volunteering to do, so a lot of it really is about gathering that information on RF Connect but also making people aware of what opportunities are out there.

Matt W: Matt you have been heavily involved in the working together at Cricket Meadow, tell us about the things you have been doing when you were a service user to bolster support and get fellow people we support to get involved?

Matt: I was involved in the interview processes for staff, I have been to various meetings and discussions about co-production, which can be anything from advising on policy, correcting paperwork, maybe some grammar, and having an input on the whole idea of co-production and being around that.

Matt W: Jordan, what activities do you get up to at Cricket meadow? Obviously Covid-19 has probably resulted in some of them changing in how they are delivered but what sort of things do you get up to, and how many people are usually involved?

Jordan: it is mainly 1 to 1s, opportunities for support from the staff and having a chat. But most of the activities have actually stopped at the minute because of Covid. It has changed everything really.

Matt W: How has the working together approach impacted on your recovery journey?

Matt: It has been an absolutely vital in here, and there is quite a lot of reasons for that and I haven’t got time for all of them. But, for example, I am able to use my skills where I was previously, outside of mental health, outside of the involvement that I have had with Richmond Fellowship to do with my mental health. I had skills, I was working, I could bring a lot of things.

“So rather than it be led by, rather than having a dynamic of service user and staff, I found myself embracing the idea and feeling really empowered by the working together.”

My mental health issues, previously driving it all seemed to dissipate, and I was able to stand shoulder to shoulder with the staff as human beings and working together. So it is incredibly empowering, travelling around the country, attending meetings, making connections which is often quite an unspoken aspect of co-production. But for me it is making connections with different organisations and people, whether that be at Richmond Fellowship or other organisations that attach to them, has made a massive difference and a lot of these connections have led to further opportunities, and further opportunities for co-production. So working together has had a quite, albeit a lifelong impact, a very very positive impact and certainly on my recovery going forward and I am very proud to be part of it.

Matt W: that’s really good to hear, Jordan I will put that same question to you?

Jordan: It gives you an insight of who is caring for me, and how much effort they actually put into what they do for us. Like Matt said, it gives you a chance to travel around the country a bit, and meet new people. It is really good.

Matt W: Jordan how are you finding your support through Richmond Fellowship at the moment?

Jordan: Really good to be honest. I have come a long way since I have been here, and I have changed so much since I have been here. I really want to thank them for what they have done for me.

Matt W: And Matt?

Matt: I have been involved with Richmond Fellowship since 2013, and my support has always been outstanding. I have been discharged from their service for over a year now, and yet I am still supported and to a great level.

“Particularly during Covid we had some zoom meetings, phone calls, and the level of support that was still offered even though I was discharged has been amazing even though these times plays a significant role in keeping me positive.”

Matt W: That is a really inspiring story Matt and yours as well Jordan. James thank you very much for joining us on Radio sparky to talk about working together and what it means to you across Richmond Fellowship. Gentleman thank you.

 

Radio Sparky – Working Together Week transcript

Radio Sparky is the podcast shining a spotlight on the work happening on the ground in Richmond Fellowship and the wider Recovery Focus Group of charities  – talking direct to staff and people we support.  To mark Working Together Week our Communications and Marketing Officer Matt Webb spoke to Matt and Jordan who use our Supported Housing Service in Stowmarket, Suffolk and the service manager James.Working Together Week

We wanted to find out from them what co-production and Working Together really means in practice, and how they’ve made it part of the service.  You can listen to the episode in full here – but if you want to have a read instead or even as well, we’ve got a transcript for you below!

Matt W: As a member of staff, it is of course working together week, what does co-production mean to you?

James: it means that we are all equal, and we are responsible for running and developing the service.

Matt: How have you managed to instill a co-production model in your service? It must have been quite a tricky thing to do, because you have to get everyone together and plan. How have you been able to make that happen?

James: Back when working together came to fruition in around 2014-15 – we are really fortunate that we have a really good community link worker, Janet, who is able to really push getting people involved in the service. Also, I think leadership is really important, so I really wanted to be quite a role model for that for staff in our services, developing a plan for example about how we are going to implement working together on a practical level.

“For example, changes as a result of that I have seen is that we always include people in the recruitment/interview process, we have people who last year helped to set the annual budget, and we also involved people in the local ways of running the service.”

They have helped formulate our approach to recovery, they have also helped out in the running of groups, and also when we are doing promotional work for mental health day, they will help to do that and run it for the day. But it is really about ensuring that it is embedded in the service and that there is a culture of working together. But also that they have got the skills and feel confident and able to dip in and dip out as they see fit as well, because it is something that you are volunteering to do, so a lot of it really is about gathering that information on RF Connect but also making people aware of what opportunities are out there.

Matt W: Matt you have been heavily involved in the working together at Cricket Meadow, tell us about the things you have been doing when you were a service user to bolster support and get fellow people we support to get involved?

Matt: I was involved in the interview processes for staff, I have been to various meetings and discussions about co-production, which can be anything from advising on policy, correcting paperwork, maybe some grammar, and having an input on the whole idea of co-production and being around that.

Matt W: Jordan, what activities do you get up to at Cricket meadow? Obviously Covid-19 has probably resulted in some of them changing in how they are delivered but what sort of things do you get up to, and how many people are usually involved?

Jordan: it is mainly 1 to 1s, opportunities for support from the staff and having a chat. But most of the activities have actually stopped at the minute because of Covid. It has changed everything really.

Matt W: How has the working together approach impacted on your recovery journey?

Matt: It has been an absolutely vital in here, and there is quite a lot of reasons for that and I haven’t got time for all of them. But, for example, I am able to use my skills where I was previously, outside of mental health, outside of the involvement that I have had with Richmond Fellowship to do with my mental health. I had skills, I was working, I could bring a lot of things.

“So rather than it be led by, rather than having a dynamic of service user and staff, I found myself embracing the idea and feeling really empowered by the working together.”

My mental health issues, previously driving it all seemed to dissipate, and I was able to stand shoulder to shoulder with the staff as human beings and working together. So it is incredibly empowering, travelling around the country, attending meetings, making connections which is often quite an unspoken aspect of co-production. But for me it is making connections with different organisations and people, whether that be at Richmond Fellowship or other organisations that attach to them, has made a massive difference and a lot of these connections have led to further opportunities, and further opportunities for co-production. So working together has had a quite, albeit a lifelong impact, a very very positive impact and certainly on my recovery going forward and I am very proud to be part of it.

Matt W: that’s really good to hear, Jordan I will put that same question to you?

Jordan: It gives you an insight of who is caring for me, and how much effort they actually put into what they do for us. Like Matt said, it gives you a chance to travel around the country a bit, and meet new people. It is really good.

Matt W: Jordan how are you finding your support through Richmond Fellowship at the moment?

Jordan: Really good to be honest. I have come a long way since I have been here, and I have changed so much since I have been here. I really want to thank them for what they have done for me.

Matt W: And Matt?

Matt: I have been involved with Richmond Fellowship since 2013, and my support has always been outstanding. I have been discharged from their service for over a year now, and yet I am still supported and to a great level.

“Particularly during Covid we had some zoom meetings, phone calls, and the level of support that was still offered even though I was discharged has been amazing even though these times plays a significant role in keeping me positive.”

Matt W: That is a really inspiring story Matt and yours as well Jordan. James thank you very much for joining us on Radio sparky to talk about working together and what it means to you across Richmond Fellowship. Gentleman thank you.

Radio Sparky – Working Together Week Podcast

Welcome to the latest edition of Radio Sparky, the podcast which shines the spotlight on the excellent work happening at Richmond Fellowship.

To mark Working Together Week across the Recovery Focus group of charities, Communications and Marketing Officer Matt Webb speaks to James Dominiak, Service Manager at Richmond Fellowship’s 24 hour Supported Housing Service in Stowmarket, Suffolk and Matt and Jordan who use the service about how they’ve embedded co-production in their service at local level.

“I’ve been involved with interview processes for staff, discussions around co-production and policy making. I was able to stand shoulder to shoulder with staff”. – Matt, person we support.

Radio Sparky – Working Together Week Podcast

Welcome to the latest edition of Radio Sparky, the podcast which shines the spotlight on the excellent work happening at Richmond Fellowship.

To mark Working Together Week across the Recovery Focus group of charities, Communications and Marketing Officer Matt Webb speaks to James Dominiak, Service Manager at Richmond Fellowship’s 24 hour Supported Housing Service in Stowmarket, Suffolk and Matt and Jordan who use the service about how they’ve embedded co-production in their service at local level.

“I’ve been involved with interview processes for staff, discussions around co-production and policy making. I was able to stand shoulder to shoulder with staff”. – Matt, person we support.

Post lockdown tour of our services

World Mental Health Day (10 October) is the international day for global mental health awareness, education, and advocacy against social stigma.  This year’s theme is “Mental Health for All”, and we are sharing stories of people that we support that show how important that is. Maggs, a person we support living in one of our 24 hour community support services, shares her story of moving from the criminal justice system into our services.

Hi! My name is Maggs and I would like to share the highs and lows of my discharge from hospital into 24hr support in the community. Before this, I spent ten years in various hospitals around the country. I think I should start from the beginning: I have been in a very low and difficult place for a long time. In 2010 I was in a place I didn’t think I could escape. My family could also see the darkness of that place in my eyes. Ten years on I can now finally accept how mentally and physically poorly I was.

Over the last ten years I have spent time in prison (for my own safety and to give the courts time to be able to apply a 37 hospital order). Once I had that order, I went to my first hospital not expecting that I would be going into a further three hospitals after that.

After being in the hospital, I gained a lot of confidence and accepted the person I used to be.

I was discharged from hospital into the community within a 24hr support housing service. This was alongside another lady who had been in the same hospital as me, so it was good to know someone who lived there too. There were also ten men who lived at the house; however this didn’t affect me even though I have a bad history with men. To be fair they were a good laugh! Eventually my friend moved in to her own flat with support from staff. It was sad to see her go but I was also so happy for her as she had worked hard to get her own flat.

I found it hard after she left, because all I was listening to were ten men bantering, swearing and being inappropriate with what they were saying and the manner they were saying it in. But now when I look back on this I know we all were struggling with mental health problems and everyone deals with these issues in so many different ways.

I know it wasn’t down to the individuals in the house that I had relapsed again, it was because I had put high expectations on myself to mend people who were struggling too.

At this point, I didn’t feel as confident as I had when I left hospital but that was because I wanted to fulfil my dreams of helping others who have been in the same position as me. I thought that if I could help anyone who is struggling with their mental health in any way shape or form, I would be fulfilled. While all this was going on, I had family back home who had been in a bad place too due to watching their own mum try to take her own life so many times. I loved them so so much but I knew that I was in the way of them following their dreams too. So, as I said at the beginning, I was admitted to a further three hospitals over the next five years.

I was at my last hospital for nearly two years and during this stay I developed many skills. These skills were then tested to their limits because I wanted to be a mum, a grandma and be with my family more than I had been. I questioned what would help me find the true Maggs underneath all the heartbreak over the years, and how I would make sense of the last ten years. I really valued the skills I learned during DBT, and I still use them to this day.

So, moving into the community was exciting, happy, scary and emotional for me. I was moving back home to my family, and I was excited as I was able to be a mum again and felt so lucky to be a grandma to seven gorgeous grandchildren. I wasn’t the only person who was emotional about moving into the community, my family were too. They had been waiting for this day for a long time.

Due to Covid-19 I was unable to see the property I was moving to. Two of the staff visited before lockdown to assess me for the accommodation and I was accepted. When I realised I wouldn’t be able to see where I was moving to, I judged the staff that came to visit me who were really lovely and approachable. I felt that I would be okay just to move in. I think my thoughts were to push myself that bit further because I knew I was so far away from the Maggs I was in 2010.

I had also met my care coordinator Kevin and my social worker Lydia. They were both so lovely and approachable too, I knew this was something big and such a positive and an amazing move waiting for me to grab with both hands.

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