The Outreach worker post has allowed us to connect with individuals and community groups/services to help us to make Flourish more visible and accessible across our rural communities. We have improved the attendance at our Focus Groups, Conversation Cafes and events.
Having Meg back on board with the group she originally helped to set up many years ago has provided us with interesting insights and context which has helped with the redesign of our group’s format, promotion and feedback loop.
Our members asked for Outreach support during our review of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Forum last year and this funding has enabled us to deliver on it. Due to the nature of our work our members face barriers when it comes to engaging with our projects and events. Having an Outreach element to our group has enabled us to offer a much-needed link to community members who are keen to be involved but who can’t make it along to our activities for various reasons.
We have made connections with the Borders LGBTQ Equalities group, Youth Borders, Avatar Borders and the NHS Borders Mental Health Rehab Service.
By designing and delivering our first Getting Ready to Flourish! session, we have provided a gentle introduction to our work to a group of new members who are now keen to access the training to become a lived experience rep for Flourish which includes peer support and personal development through the IROC Wellbeing toolkit.
We have arranged a referral pathway with Health in Mind so that once people have completed their courses or 1-2-1 sessions they can be signposted to Flourish. We now also have a regular input with residents at Miller House – rehab service to support them to feedback about their care plans and the service they receive.
We are in discussions with Borders Carers Centre and the rehab service with the aim of more carers being involved in Flourish and having a route to share their experiences and get involved in co-production.
Prior to receiving this funding, we had one volunteer lived experience representative who was actively involved in our work and one who had stepped back as she had been receiving treatment. We now have seven members engaging regularly, who are keen to complete the first stage of the rep training this November and take on the lived experience representative volunteer role. Once trained we aim that they will be able to facilitate tables at our conversation café events, promote Flourish in their community, buddy new members to attend and engage in our events and be active members of our working group which meets monthly. Our trainee reps are now in a WhatsApp group so that we can quickly send updates and reminders about meetings etc.
We have also established monthly support meeting for LE reps, which offer a space to chat with the worker 121 as well as discuss their experiences as a group and share their learning. It helps build connection and trust between our trainee reps and the worker too.
We have been able to redesign, rebrand and relaunch our collective advocacy group using a co-production approach. We have also facilitated our first Getting Ready to Flourish! session which is a gentle introduction for new members to help them to integrate with current members including our reps and our staff team. We have also been able to develop Level 1 and 2 training for our reps to make sure they are equipped, informed and supported in their role. The Outreach worker has also made links with the Rehab service who have been keen to include a PWLE in their quarterly service development meetings. We have also included a support package for our reps including group peer support, training, and IROC Wellbeing. We have also successfully achieved membership at VOX Scotland which is the national collective advocacy organisation so that our members and reps can be linked in with their peers across the country and with the work VOX are doing. VOX facilitated their first ever Borders conversation café in October 20205 and we are thrilled that we have been able to help people from the Borders have their say on national matters regarding mental health support.
We have also started a bi-monthly members newsletter. Our members asked for a sustainable feedback loop and with this funding we have been able to include this to make sure members are kept up to date with opportunities for engagement and the impact of their input.
Flourish now has a Facebook and Instagram page which members and members of the public including professionals can connect with us on and help us to share our updates and opportunities for engagement.
With our outreach worker role, we have been able to make meaningful connections with Borders carers centre, Borders LGBTQ Equalities, Avatar Borders, Health in Mind and the NHS MH Rehab service (including Millar House). We now have members from each of these groups engaging with us on a regular basis.
The additional funding has enabled the Mental Health Development Worker and the Flourish project to design something meaningful which has increased real engagement. We would like to build on this success and continue to improve co-productivity working in mental health by renewing our Co-production Charter. Having the outreach worker promoting Flourish and engaging and supporting individuals to be involved has freed up the MH Development Worker to plan and now begin this work. Whilst we will start by testing the redesigned charter in MH Services, we would like the Health and Social Care Partnership as a whole to adopt its principles and practice across adult health and social care. BCV will be adding this as a goal to our business & delivery plans going forward. We would also like to continue to develop and support a wider range of people with lived experience and continue to grow Flourish’s reach – we have made a further application to CMHWBF to support this.
The funding has also been an excellent compliment to the work commissioned by the HSCP via the MH Development worker, and has really added value to the role and the work of BCV. Thank you so much for supporting it.
These have been very straightforward so far.
In addition to the CMHWBF application we have made for 2025-26, we may need some digital expertise to design e-learning modules and/or a specialist sub-site to host our Co-production charter and any tools we design to support it. As the HSCP does not have its own web presence we foresee that we would need to provide that ourselves to host the charter. Staff learning/Training, access to digital / website expertise and funding to enable that would be really impactful.
Cannot overstate the value of this funding in opening up more opportunities for more people with lived and living experience of mental ill health to be heard, influence change and help grow our movement. Funding like this adds much needed development time and space to design and promote a meaningful approach that our lean statutory funding could never facilitate. Thank you again!
