Events | News

Events

In 2011 Voices 4 Wellbeing (V4W) produced and also worked in partnership with various organisations to help produce a number of ‘Have Your Say’ events. V4W wanted to involve the general public and the users of services with the commissioners and providers of those services in an interactive way.

At the events, presentations were given by service providers and the audience was given the opportunity to ask questions. ‘Ask the Audience’ equipment was used to gather information from the audience who physically voted using pushbutton handsets.

V4W invited a couple of people who had a ‘lived experience’ of the event subject to give a personal account of what it had felt like to be in that situation. The personal accounts were very well received and many people were affected by them. In order to further involve and interact with the audience, V4W organised for plays and poems to be produced and acted out at a couple of the events.

Altogether the events proved to be informative, interactive, information gathering and emotive.

 

BME Drug and Alcohol Misuse Event

On 7th December V4W worked in partnership with BME Health Matters to hold a ‘Drug and Alcohol Misuse’ event within the BME community. The event was held at the Castlemere Community Centre and one hundred people attended on the day.

Anwar Shad from Road Safety gave a presentation on ‘Drinking and Driving and Road Safety’. The presentation was factual and some statistics and photographs were quite shocking in their reality.

At this point the event took a turn as the power went off in the building! However the speakers and organisers rose to the occasion and a torch was found. Wassiem Rafique from the Drug and Alcohol Action Team (DAAT) Gary Byrne from the Sahara/CRI Project quickly adapted to the situation. They managed to shed some light on their subjects and talked about the services they provided, so that the audience were not left in the dark, although they were in the dark, so to speak!

Tricia Hornby (Chief Executive of Rochdale and District Mind) narrated a true moving story about a lady from the Asian community who was an alcoholic and about the help she received from the services. All power to Councillor Sultan Ali as the lights came back on in time for him to encourage the members of the audience to acknowledge if they had drug or alcohol problems, not to deny them, but to access the services presented to them at the event.

Fortunately for everybody at the event, the kitchen staff had also risen to the occasion and despite the power cut, produced hot food, which was very much appreciated.

 

Voices 4 Wellbeing's 3rd Birthday Celebration

Voices 4 Wellbeing's 3rd Year Celebration at the Back ‘O’ th Moss Community centre in Heywood on 24th November 2011 was a very relaxed, informal affair. Last year the event was in Middleton and hopefully the next one will be in the Pennine area.

Shabnam Sardar (Public Health Manager – Wellbeing) gave a presentation on ‘Five Ways to Wellbeing’. Ursula Hussain (Oldham Link Manager) gave a ‘HealthWatch’ presentation followed by a HealthWatch workshop with three different groups discussing three different issues.

Saeed Anwar’s (V4W Manager) gave an overview of V4Ws work. Jennifer Fletcher (V4W governor), gave an account of her role and duties that she had carried out over the year and Jacqueline Bestley (V4W’s Outreach & Engagement officer) talked about her work with volunteers.

Khalid Bashir from BME Health Matters and Janice Hollis from the Drug and Alcohol Action Team gave a warm account of their experiences of working in partnership with V4W. Their appreciation was expressed regarding V4W’s help and expertise with a recommendation for other organisations to do the same.

Robin Parker from Just Poets produced and narrated an interesting and amusing poem celebrating the Borough of Rochdale to round off the event. Please follow the link to read the poem - ‘Water Under the Bridge’

 

Drug and Alcohol Misuse Event in Hopwood College

A really exciting event was held on 19th October 2011 when V4W worked in partnership with Hopwood College. A ‘Have Your Say’ Drug and Alcohol Misuse event was organised, with Hopwood College’s Middleton Campus as the venue. Forty four young people from the college attended on the day!

The college’s drama students produced and performed a very dramatic play. It was portrayed from the point of view of a young girl whose family were involved with drugs and the consequences that affected them all. The students also produced and brilliantly narrated a poem on the subject of the effect on a young girl with a father who drank a lot of alcohol.

Service advice and information was provided by Janice Hollis from the Drug and Alcohol Action Team and Rhyse Cathcart from Early Breaks. There were questions both from the speakers and the audience and information was gathered using the ‘Ask The Audience’ equipment. An emotional true story was related from a person who had been married to an alcoholic and the effect it had had on herself and her child.

The college kitchen staff very kindly produced some very tasty pizzas to finish the event off, which went down well with organisers and audience alike.

 

 

BME Dementia Event

As a follow up from their Dementia event on 11th March, V4W worked in partnership with BME Health Matters to hold a similar event within the BME community. This was held on 13th July at the Castlemere Centre. Khalid Bashir from BME Health Matters, using his contacts, obviously worked hard to encourage people to attend as one hundred and twenty people arrived on the day!

There were many different languages spoken by the audience and an interpreter was used to translate what the speakers were saying. Lots of information was given regarding services from Sue Clarke, Jayne Myers and Razia Shamim. There were interesting talks given about Dementia and Alzheimers with leaflets given out which gave the time dates for the Memory Wellbeing Cafes.

Robin Parker from Just Poets had written an emotional monologue which was recited by a BME actress. The story was about a granddaughter whose grandfather came to live in the family home displaying signs of Dementia and not quite understanding what was happening to him. An emotional poem was also read out from a personal experience of a grandfather’s Dementia.

This was a very interactive event with audience participation and ‘Ask the Audience’ equipment was used to gather information. A very tasty home cooked hot meal concluded the event to everybody’s satisfaction!

The report for this event can be found on the following link: BME Dementia Report

 

Drug and Alcohol Misuse Event

A really brilliant event on ‘Drug and Alcohol Misuse’ was held by V4W on 1st June 2011 at Richmond Hall in Rochdale.                 

The ‘Have Your Say’ event was very interactive with a young drama student performing a monologue about the potential effects of too much alcohol. Two young people produced and bravely narrated their two poems to an audience of thirty five young people from the Borough’s youth clubs. Early Breaks, The Drug and Alcohol Action Team and a local Police Community Support Officer gave their presentations, explaining about their roles and the services that their organisation provided.

A poem was recited by Just Poets and two people spoke about their experiences, one person being a recovering alcoholic and one having been married to an alcoholic who eventually died. With lots of emotion around it was a relief when the Pizzas arrived and the young people could tuck in!

The report for this event can be found at the following link: Drug and Alcohol/Youth Clubs Report

 

 

Dementia Event

V4W’s Dementia event was held on the 11th March 2011 at the Castlemere Centre in Rochdale and 44 people were in attendance.

        This turned out to be quite an emotional event where a recently bereaved lady spoke about her experience of being a carer for her husband. She gave a very emotional account of the effect that her husband’s deteriorating Dementia had on both her and her husband’s lives.

Sister Candy James from the Watergrove Memory Clinic gave some interesting statistical information about Dementia. She also discussed her experiences of her own mother having dementia. Fozia Waseem (Commissioning Manager for Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale Primary Care Trust) gave an overview of the Dementia Strategy. Fozia gave some startling statistical information which included that by 2025 there will be over 1 million people living with dementia in the UK.

To round off the event, Robin Parker from Just Poets recited a very emotional poem regarding a child’s experience of her grandmother slipping away into Dementia.The event touched many hearts and tears were shed on the day.

The report for this event can be found on the following link: Dementia Report

 

Personalisation Event

V4W’s Personalisation event took place on the 16th February 2011 at the Castlemere Community Centre in Rochdale. Approximately 40 people attended the event.

Colin Foster: Director of Older People & Physical Disabilities RMBC and Jane Ashton: Head of Access & Enablement RMBC gave their ‘Putting People First’ presentation. The presentation included Rochdale Metropolitan Boroughs Council

This was a very interactive event with the public asking many questions and putting their point of view across. A follow up Focus group took place on the 2nd March to discuss the issues raised at the event in more detail.

The report for this event can be found at the following link: - Personalisation Report