Last Week Was Volunteers' Week, and This Edition of the Partnership

Welcome to the latest edition of the Adferiad Partnership newsletter. Last week was Volunteers’ Week, and this edition of the partnership newsletter has plenty of great stories demonstrating just how important volunteers are to our work. No matter their role, we know you’ll agree that volunteers make a huge difference to the services we provide across Wales, and we’re incredibly grateful to have their support. This week we are celebrating Carers Week and recognising the invaluable contribution carers across Wales make – we will bring you more news in the next edition of the Newsletter. As Welsh Government continues to ease restrictions in various areas of our lives, we’re starting to look at how we can begin to safely reopen services. With changes being announced regularly, it’s not an easy task, but we’re determined to do whatever we can to ensure our services are available for those who need them, and we appreciate how hard you’re all working to make this happen. Finally, we just want to take this chance to remind you that we’re here to support you. If you’re struggling, or concerned about anything, particularly as government advice changes, please do discuss it with your manager who will help find a solution. Clive, Alun & Karen • Adferiad Recovery to feature on S4C We are delighted to have been offered free advertising on S4C to raise awareness of our Beat the Odds Campaign. Beat the Odds has been developed by CAIS and Living Room Cardiff as an effective service for people with gambling problems which is available to people throughout Wales, and we know that there are many people in our community who would benefit from this support. The opportunity to raise awareness of the work we do, and let people know how to get in touch with us through the advertising on S4C is hugely appreciated. It's important to us that our community knows we are here for them and they are not alone. It's fantastic to see the power of advertising being used in such a positive way! • Using art to stay positively healthy • Dylan, who has been receiving services from WCADA’s SWITCH project has written this article to share his experiences and how he’s been using art to stay positively healthy: “I have suffered badly with different mental illnesses, such as severe depression and anxiety, psychosis and Borderline Personality Disorder, for the last six years. Due to me trying to self-medicate to change my mood, I discovered quick fixes to help make myself feel better, often resorting to taking substances to help me escape and feel more in control. I had a scary experience, where I almost died from taking too much of what I thought was a good thing. “This was my wake-up call - I needed to seek help and support with my substance misuse issues, which resulted in me engaging with WCADA’s young person’s service SWITCH. I have not used substances for the last two months and recognise that by using drugs, I was trying to escape the past, and in fact it was making my problems worse in the end. I am now on the path to recovery with my substance misuse issues in the past, and my mental health and wellbeing my priority for my future. I continue to use all support available to stay positively healthy by utilising a combination of my therapy, medication and personal self-care practices. “I have been creating art, centred on mental health awareness for the last couple of years now and after talking to WCADA about it, shared my imagery for Mental Health Awareness Week to help others who have felt like I have. I used these new skills to start my own clothing brand dedicated to spreading positive awareness and share my creative little doodles on my Instagram page (@growthroughcommunity); I have built an amazing and positive community on there. My hope is that I help others to feel less alone, know their worth and to feel accepted in our society and it is great to know that I am making a tiny positive difference in the world. I have struggled with suicidal thoughts in the past, so this art therapy outlet helps to keep me going and helps to have a purpose, an identity, and a goal in life. “My future aspirations are to become a public speaker to share my personal story and experiences through my mental illness journey. I am aiming to become a volunteer with the young person’s peer mentoring project for children and young people in WCADA when I finish treatment. I hope to continue to grow my online community and create further art and inspirational pieces to help give something back.” Dylan Sparkes • Congratulations to Hafal volunteer and campaigner Jo Roberts! Jo Roberts is a service user campaigner and one of Hafal’s longest-serving volunteers who has championed the rights of Hafal’s Members for decades. In fact it was down to Jo’s campaigning that the Mental Health Act Code of Practice for Wales prescribed a holistic care plan for secondary mental health patients. Jo was put under Section 37/41 of the Mental Health Act way back in 1989. We are delighted to report that after more than thirty years, on 23 April this year, a Tribunal finally discharged Jo from the Section! Jo said: “For the first time in half a lifetime I feel as if I’m a normal member of society. I feel free.” Huge congratulations to Jo from everyone – we are absolutely thrilled for you and we look forward to continuing to work with you on improving rights for people in Wales who experience serious mental illness and their carers. Read more about Jo Roberts and her Blog here. • Great feedback on CAIS Crisis Project As you will have seen in previous newsletters, the team at CAIS have been successful in securing funding for a new crisis project delivering food parcels and utilities top up cards to vulnerable people affected by Covid-19. This week they were delighted to receive this feedback from Arianne Caloe, Community Development Officer at Wales & West Housing: “I have worked with the fantastic staff at CAIS and their sister support agencies for a number of years, and as always, they have “nailed” this project, that may I add is NOT their niche area of support!! “CAIS secured funding from the Steve Morgan Foundation to enable their staff to provide food parcels and pre-paid gas and electric top ups to our residents that have been affected by Covid-19. “The level of support for our residents at WWHG has been overwhelming, the staff at CAIS have gone over and above to ensure service levels have been smashed and needs have been met within record timing (on most occasions within a few hours of the initial referral). “Not only have the provisions of food, gas and electric been achieved, some of our residents are now looking at avenues of support within the core values and channels that CAIS provide.” • Big THANK YOU to volunteers at Time to Change Wales! Time to Change Wales is a national anti-stigma campaign delivered by partners Hafal and Mind Cymru. Hafal coordinates the Time to Change Wales Champions element of the campaign which sees an army of volunteers with personal experience of mental illness sharing their stories with a wide audience in order to reduce stigma. Time to Change Wales marked Volunteers Week 2020 by celebrating the fantastic work of those who give their time to our campaign. Indeed, without volunteers, there would be no Time to Change Wales – they are the very heart and soul of everything we do! As a team, we are continually overwhelmed and humbled the courage and bravery of our volunteers in choosing to share their lived experience of having a mental health condition with others, in the hope that others might not struggle in silence or face the same stigma/discrimination. Whether they are delivering an anti-stigma talk, writing a blog, having a conversation with someone about mental health, simply sharing/liking a post on social media or helping spread the message that ‘it’s okay to talk’ in one of a number of other ways, each volunteer’s contribution helps to inspire, educate and challenge old ways of thinking, which drives Time to Change Wales forwards in its mission to end the stigma and discrimination that so often surrounds mental health. This is why we call our volunteers ‘Champions’! We celebrated Volunteers Week with a special edition of our Champions newsletter. The newsletter included a blog from TtCW’s Program Manager, Lowri, thanking Champions for everything they do, highlighting that ‘It’s not an underestimation to say that Time to Change Wales champions really do change lives’. You can read the blog here: https://www.timetochangewales.org.uk/en/personal-stories/volunteers- week-2020-heartfelt-thank-you/ . We also heard from several Champions, old and new, who talked about why they chose to volunteer for Time to Change Wales, the experiences and opportunities it has given them as well as the positive impact it has had on their own mental health. We heard further volunteering highlights and success stories (as well as a few funny anecdotes!) during our Champions Coffee and Chat – a virtual meeting we have held weekly during lockdown. Not only was this a chance to say thank you ‘in person’ to Champions, but it also gave us the chance to share some statistics with them which helped to highlight and to quantify the impact of their volunteering – in the past 12 months, for example, our Champions had collectively engaged with nearly 7,000 people at over 350 events! As we reflect on the work of our Champions, it’s clear that Time to Change Wales isn’t a programme that works with volunteers, the campaign is our volunteers, and we will always was be thankful to them.

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