Advocacy In Wirral
First Aid First For AiW
Chris Shaw, AiW's Chief Executive has collected a prestigious new award from Mental Health First Aid England (MHFA), the body which aims to improve mental health literacy throughout the country.
Mental Health First Aid is exactly what its name suggests – a first aid approach to mental health. Originally founded and developed by Betty Kitchener and Professor Tony Jorm in Australia, MHFA has been successfully introduced around the world in countries as diverse as Hong Kong, Singapore, Finland, Canada, USA and Scotland. The MHFA awards are a celebration of leaders and champions. They identify examples of excellent projects, as well as acknowledging innovation and high performance.
Advocacy in Wirral’s chief executive Chris Shaw received the award at a special event in the House of Lords on Thursday 26 January 2011. Pictured below, from left to right, are Nigel Jones from event sponsor Linklaters LLP, Simon Weston OBE, Chris Shaw and Lord Kamlesh Patel, patron of MHFA England.
“Over the last year, the overwhelming majority of our staff and volunteers have undertaken the two-day training course in Mental Health First Aid,” said Chris. “As a charity working to help people with mental health conditions, it is vitally important that everyone has a basic knowledge and understanding of common mental health conditions and how they can help people. Our aspiration is that every new and existing member of staff should receive this training.”
The award was for showing ‘exemplary commitment to increasing mental health literacy through working with and utilising MHFA’.
Last year, Advocacy in Wirral worked with almost 5,000 clients, helping them with benefits, housing or debt issues and providing low-intensity therapies such as computerised cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT).
The award comes within weeks of Advocacy in Wirral achieving the prestigious ISO 9001 quality mark, making it one of only a handful of voluntary organisations on the Wirral to have been given the ISO stamp of approval.
If you are interested in organising MHFA training in the Wirral, please contact Tony Lawrence on 0151 650 1530 to discuss further.
Volunteering Award For Mick!A volunteer working at Advocacy in Wirral’s West Kirby Drop-In Centre has scooped an award to recognise his contribution.
In Transition!At a time when Advocacy in Wirral is busier than ever, we’ve been investing a lot of time and energy in developing our staff to ensure we can continue to provide a quality service while resources in society are getting tighter.There’s no doubting that the current economic malaise is having a severe impact on people on the Wirral, and we are seeing this reflected in the increased workload carried by our staff and volunteers. Earlier this year, Advocacy in Wirral was fortunate to receive a large award from the Government’s Transition Fund to help us manage the uncertainties of contract changes that are affecting large parts of the third sector. The award was a public endorsement of the valuable work we do in helping vulnerable people with mental health, substance misuse and alcohol issues. Advocacy in Wirral is now almost half-way through our Year of Transition, so here’s an update on what we’ve been working on with our Transition Fund monies up to now:
So, as you can see – we’ve had a busy six months working behind the scenes to improve our infrastructure. Advocacy in Wirral is getting ready for the challenges ahead! |
Quality Counts at AiW!Advocacy in Wirral is celebrating achieving the independently-certified ISO 9001 award for its management system.
AiW was subject to a rigorous assessment of its processes and procedures to demonstrate compliance with ISO 9001 requirements - an internationally recognised quality standard that specifies how organisations control the quality of products and services. Included in the standard is the requirement for monitoring and measurement, and continual improvement.
In At The Deep End!Advocacy in Wirral's Chief Executive, Chris Shaw, will be taking to the water to once again swim the Mersey from Liverpool to Birkenhead, raising funds for our APEx project.Last year, Chris raised £531 - and this year (with your help) he can raise even more!The 2010 Annual Mersey Swim takes place on Saturday 20 August, crossing from the Echo Arena in Liverpool to Monks Ferry on the Wirral side of the Mersey.
For more information on APEx click here. If you'd like to sponsor Chris, click here or drop into our Woodside offices.
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Chris said: "APEx is an exercise and wellbeing club and project set up to prove the massive benefits of exercise upon mental health and wellbeing - we want to raise funds to futher promote outdoors exercise as a great way of fending off the coming autumn and winter's impact upon how we feel". He added: "By next spring, lots of us will feel great after a winter out and about taking part in some group activities shared in the company of friends!"