Voice for Choice: 2011

The PFG Gains a Great Boost

Saturday, 22 October 2011

It is simply amazing to be able to report that the PFG has secured a significant financial support boost. The group has received funding to support us to grow, develop our skills and become a sustainable user led organisation. It is no secret to anyone who knows our work that we work very creatively to raise well needed finances to continue with our work. It is fantastic that we have gained such an astounding level of financial support from the Office for Disability Issues and we pledge that we will utilise every single penny to make sure that we can support more people in our community. We have some great plans for the future that are now achieveable. We will prepare a report on our progress but can not express our gratitude enough.

SOCIAL WORKER OF THE YEAR FINALIST

We are pleased to announce that Kelly has been named as a finalist for Adult Social Worker of the Year. The awards ceremony will be held on the 16th December 2011at The House of Lords. It is amazing that Kelly has made it this far and we are thrilled that the judging panel recognised Kelly's contribution to Social Work. We will all be rooting for Kelly and to everyone in the PFG Kelly is already the Social Worker of the year.

We have done an interview with Kelly to ask questions about the awards:

Ian Jerams of RDASH attends group meeting

Thursday, 13 October 2011

The PFG would like to give a formal thank you to Mr. Jerams for attending our group meeting on Tuesday. We appreciate his time and thank him for listening to what we are achieveing. Group members felt that it made a refreshing change for a senior person to meet service users face to face and have such an open discussion.

THANK YOU IAN

The PFG receive funding

We have some excellent news to share....The PFG have been awarded a generous grant to enable us to continue with our work. We are thrilled that we will be able to use this money to move things forward. We hope to develop a new wesb site over the coming months and will use this space to give formal thanks and recognition to everyone who supports us to grow.

THANK YOU TO SUNLOWS

Thursday, 6 October 2011

Members of the group went to London last Friday to deliver a presentation about the group and to present our new mental health model for personalisation. There was an excellent turn out with some very interesting debates. We hope to have made some good links and enjoyed the opportunity to share our ideas. Everyone was very welcoming and we made some good friends.

Our Claire in the Community

If you are looking for something to do our Claire is full of useful information about whats happening locally. Lots of people tell us that they really struggle with evenings and weekends as this is the time they feel most isolated.

Claire's weekend reccomendations:

GROUP POWER

Thursday, 22 September 2011

We are beginning to gather some strong evidence to show the positives achieved by the PFG. Many members have personal success stories and achievements as a result of gaining peer support. We thought it would be good to begin celebrating some of these achievements.

MEET A SUPPORT BUDDY

Name: John

John is a member of the PFG and is a very active Support Buddy. John often gives his time and skills to support others in the group.

TWO MEMBERS COMPLETE TRAINING

Vinny and Jude have both completed a two day training course delivered by Sheffield Council. Jude and Vinny secured places through Personalisation Plus and aim to begin delivering peer support planning. This will be a great asset to the group. The training was described as comprehensive, interesting, inspiring and informative with both attendees feeling better equipped to support others through the process of support planning. Jude and Vinny will both now undertake a supervised support plan to be signed and agreed by Sheffield Council. When they have completed this piece of work they will gain accreditation. Both Jude and Vinny described being 'blown away' by the support and services available in Sheffield and were overwhelmed by the ease of the process. Both felt that Sheffield's approach provides reassurance and inspiration to the many people still waiting to gain choice and control of their own support.

CONGRATULATIONS TO JUDE & VINNY

SUNLOWS SEMINAR

The PFG will be in London on the 30th September 2011. We will be delivering a presentation at the SUNLOWS Seminar which is a group of service users supported by the North London Hub. The Service Users North London Website (SUNLOWS) was set up a few years ago by and for Service Users with technical help form the hub. SUNLOWS tries to make the whole subject of research user-friendly.

“Research is a core part of the NHS because it enables the NHS to improve the current and future health of the population including mental health”

We are looking forward to the event and have been busy preparing a presentation to share about our experiences of personalisation, how we work as a group and what we aim to achieve. Our presentation will be available on our site after the event. We are pleased that people across the country are interested in our work.

PFG HAVE OFFICE SPACE YIPPEEEEE

Wednesday, 17 August 2011

We would like to announce that The PFG has secured office space for two days per week. This is a great support in helping us to continue with our work. Those of you who know us will often see us carrying HUGE bags around with all our paperwork so at last we have a filing cabinet to call our own. We are absoloutley over the moon and this will make sure that we can be more organised and efficient within our work.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PFG

The PFG have reached their first anniversery as a group of citizens working together. We believe this is a great achievement and shows the level of commitment and dedication we have as a group to continue working together. Its been a funny old year with some amazing highs and lows. We have achieved so much in the time we have been together and are looking forward to see what our next year brings. The PFG wish to thank everyone who has supported us during our first year and we hope to continue doing our community proud.

OUR VINNY COULD CARRY THE OLYMPIC FLAME

We are delighted that Vinny has been selected to represent the PFG in the next stage of the nomination process to be an Olympic Torchbearer. Vinny's inspirational story of personal achievement and contribution to the community has made it this far in the nominations. We will be supporting Vinny all the way in this once in a lifetime opportunity.

NEW PUBLICATION COMING SOON

Tuesday, 9 August 2011

The PFG have nearly finalised our next publication 'Support Buddies'. The paper describes Support Buddies as a new citizen peer support project launched by the Personalisation Forum Group. The project is based on mutuality and a shared journey of discovery within which people help and support each other as equals. The PFG are very proud of this paper which documents our journey to date, shares good practice examples and explains how peer support is our communities strongest asset. We will be launcing our publication on the 28th September where we have four regional events scheduled. More details will be posted soon.

As always we have an interesting array of high level support for our document.

Developing Peer Support in Sheffield

The PFG are proud to be supporting people in Sheffield to develop a Peer Support Model. The People's Parliment in Sheffield have been discussing how Local Authorities have been given less money by central governement and that one of the ways that they are trying to save money is by cutting services to disabled people as well as funding to disabled people's organisations and service providers.

NEW MEETING PLACE

Wednesday, 13 July 2011

The PFG now have a new meeting place - The Community Hall, St Peter-in-Chains, Chequer Road, Doncaster, DN1 2AA. Meetings will now take place every Tuesday at 5.00pm.

The PFG made the decision to seek new premises because many people could not access the meetings held at Rebound because the meeting room is upstairs. We hope that our new venue allows more people to attend as it is a ground floor meeting room that is wheelchair accessible. We would like to give our thanks for the time that Rebound has allowed us to use their meeting room.

We would like to give a great big THANK YOU to the church for allowing us to use their building. This means that we can continue to meet, grow and build our community.

Inspirational Quotes

Saturday, 11 June 2011

Our Kelly in Community Care

Kelly is a member of the PFG and we found these two articles featured in Community Care Magazine (not too sure about the photographs). The PFG are big fans of the magazine and its great to get our members voices heard nationally.

How bureaucracy is derailing personalisation

Jeremy Dunning asks why bureaucracy is derailing personalisation and what can be done to rescue the policy

Kelly Hicks (above), independent social worker, Doncaster

http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles/2011/06/01/116873/how-bureaucracy-is-derailing-personalisation.htm

Supporting our Local Services

Friday, 10 June 2011

The PFG weekly meeting focussed on giving feedback on the mental health crisis team. The group presented individual experiences of the local service and were pleased to welcome Gus and Paula from RDaSH to the meeting. We are particularly proud of our members who shared their individual experiences and hope that everyone found the meeting beneficial. We are really pleased that RDaSH attended our meeting and listened to the groups views. We hope that this will be the first of many opportunities to work in partnership with RDaSH to support our local services to be something that we can all be really proud of. (Read more on what our members said)

Great British National Home Care Award WINNERS

Monday, 16 May 2011

We did it!....The PFG only went and won The Putting People First Award at the 2011 Great British Care Awards. What an absoloute honour and an achievement that we are all so very proud of. We believe that this really does demonstrate that as service users we can make a big contribution to social care. We are busy preparing a full account of the night but wanted to share the news as soon as we could.

Using the Law to Fight Cuts

Monday, 9 May 2011

Using the Law to Fight Cuts to Disabled People’s Services

A practical guide for campaigners – disabled people, families, carers and local groups

Introduction

This paper is intended to help campaigners – including disabled people and those supporting them - understand how the law can be used to help fight cuts to valued services for disabled and other vulnerable people in their area. The paper is intended to be read by those who do not have a legal background. However, any individual or local group who is considering legal action in relation to actual or proposed cuts to services should not rely only on this paper but should seek specialist advice, including legal advice.

Document linked HERE

CARE TALK MAGAZINE FEATURE THE GROUP

The PFG are proud to be featured in Mays edition of The Care Talk Magazine. To read the article please visit http://www.caretalk.co.uk/

The Group have subscribed to the publication and think that it is well worth a read. The magazine covers lots of interesting social care topics and features.

BIG THANK YOU

Thursday, 5 May 2011

As everyone knows we have been busy fund rasing for the Care Awards. Yesterday we had some amazing donations that were much needed to boost our funds. THANK YOU to all the staff at the drop in at Rebound who donated 150.00. This money was raised by selling items of clothing and raffles. THANK YOU to Andrew's mum who donated 100.00.

We would also like to give a HUGE THANK YOU to Doncaster Womens Centre. The staff there are now officially our 'Fairy Godmothers'. The group were so pleased with their offer of support to the ladies attending the awards. The Womens Centre will support the ladies with beauty help and advice, confidence boosting and a full dress rehearsal. This will make sure we all look and feel a million dollars. The Treasurer said "it is fantistic to have the support of our local services, we hope we can do Doncaster proud".

Fundraising Update 01/05/2011

Sunday, 1 May 2011

Just a quick update on the fundraising. We again went for the early start of Sunday morning car boot at Keepmoat Stadium. We had another fantastic day. The sun was shinning even though it was a little windy and we raised a total of £148. Thank you to all the group and committee members who joined us on the stall. Well done guys. Thank you to all the generous people who bought items from our stall, and a final thank you to the following people;

Louise Field, Wendy Boyes and Chris Busby, who had a stall oposite ours and donated a TV from their stall to help boost our funds - they also had a great sense of humour, thank you.

So not long now till the Great British Care Awards in London. Lets keep up the fundraisng, and well done to all.

VICE CHAIR ELECTED

Monday, 25 April 2011

Welcome to Diane Lees who was unanimously voted as the PFG Vice Chair at last weeks committee meeting. The group are pleased that Di has accepted the position. Di has a wealth of experience to bring to the group and is passionate and committed to the groups aims of developing more personalised support options for the people of Doncaster who experience poor mental health. Di is super organised and will support Vinny to make sure we continue to meet our objectives and continue going from strength to strength. Welcom Di and thank you for giving your time to support the group.

FUNDRAISING FUN IN THE SUN

CAR BOOT

This Sunday was the second week that members of The PFG worked together to raise funds for the forthcoming Great British Care Awards. The group are working tirelessly to raise the funds needed for twenty members of the group to attend the ceremony.

THE PFG GOES NATIONAL

The Doncaster representatives for The PEOPLE Study National Lived Experience Advisory Panel (LEAP)have now been agreed. Congratulations to our Chairman, Vinny our Vice Chair, Di and Lyndsey from the Involve Group. We think that this is an excellent team to advise the study at a national level. It will be a great opportunity to get a real voice for Doncaster to advise on Personalistaion in Mental Health.

Fundraising Update

Monday, 18 April 2011

Carboot

Yesterday 17/04/11, we held a car boot at Keepmoat stadium, despite a few technical problems before and after carboot, we had a very successful day raising a total of £150, and enjoying a fantastic morning of sunshine and meeting some very nice and generous people of Doncaster.

Chairman Vinny Featured in Community Care Magazine

Friday, 1 April 2011

Vinny is the Chairman of the group and has recently been interviewed for Community Care Magazine. The article is published in the 31st March edition.

Members of The Group Attend The Anti Cuts Protest

Members of the group attended the anti cuts protest in London where they were among an estimated 500,000 protestors who joined the TUC-organised demonstration. The group members went to the protest to show their support for The Campaign For a Fair Society. Claire who attended the protest said that she thought the protest was a great success and she was glad to be part of it. She felt that it shows the level of public opinion on the cuts facing public services.

Graphics provided by The Campaign For a Fair Society if you want to read more please go to the site http://www.centreforwelfarereform.org/library/graphics-diagrams/unfair-cuts1.html

Great British Care Awards

On the 23rd March four members of the group Andrew, Vinny, Judith and Kelly went to the Marriott Hotel at London to meet the judging panel for The Great British Care Award Finals.

Our first public presentation

Thursday, 24 March 2011

On 16th march we held our first public presentation at Doncaster CVS, and for our first ever presentation, it was a real sucess, attendees included, group members, service users, Rebound, The people Study, involve, Personal Budget support Group, RDaSH Research and Key Ring.

We would like to take this oppotunity to say thank you to Doncaster CVS for all there help and support, with special thanks to 3 indiviuals who donated a sum of money to the group, it is greatly appreciated. Thank you to all the group members and service users who so bravely stood up and told their personal experiances regarding mental health and Personalisatio, well done all of you, you shoul be extreamly proud of yourselves, i know i am very proud of you all, well done and thank you again, and finally to all who bought raffel tickets, your generosity is greatly appreciated. << Click the title to read more>>

Chairman's Corner

Thursday, 17 March 2011

Who are we you ask?!

We are a group of approximately 60 service users who decided to join together to share a common goal and dream.

The dream is to remove the current stigma surrounding mental health and to unite as one voice to support positive change. Through personalisation we aim to promote and sustain people's right to have control over their own life and support regarding mental health. We aim to do this by promoting direct payments, peer support and demonstrating a full community approach to personalisation.

Join the Mental Health and Personalisation YAHOO Group

Saturday, 12 March 2011

The Mental Health & Personalisation YAHOO group has around 135 members from all over the country, including people who use mental health services, people who support them, workers in mental health, commissioners and other interested people.

Relevant Recent Publications

The PFG A Voice For Choice are committed to continually updating our site with relevant information and publications. This blog contains really useful links.

Personal Budget Questionnaire

The Putting People First Consortium is working with In Control and Lancaster University to check how personal budgets are working. The questionnaire is for anyone in England with a personal budget or direct payment. There are versions of the questionnaire for carers and for personal budget holders themselves.

This is a really good way of getting people’s experiences heard.

Peer Support Initiatives

Tuesday, 8 March 2011

The PFG believe strongly in the power of peer support. We believe that peer support will be a strong element of making personalisation successful and we are constantly seeking new ways of developing our peer support services.

Cooking with vinny

Thursday, 24 February 2011

Cooking with Vinny

Basic cooking skills and recipies with Vinny our celebrity Chef.
6 week course, starting Monday 7th March @ Rebound Doncaster.Small charge of £2.50 and food taken home. If you are interested in learning some new skills please leave your name with Jane at Rebound Drop In.

Please join the campaign for a fair society

Wednesday, 23 February 2011

The Campaign wants power and control to shift from government to citizens, families <read more>

Our manifesto is now an E-edition for you to read,

We had our manisfesto made into an online e-edition to make it easier for people to get a hold of.

You can read our online manifesto HERE

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