UK Recovery Federation Service User Involvement & Recovery Event 09.09.10

Service User Involvement & Recovery Event 09.09.10

As many of you will know we held our first National UK Recovery Federation (UKRF) conference in May. Lots of workshops at the conference covered lots of different Recovery themes and feedback from all of these (Mutual Aid and Recovery has gone up) is being posted here on Wired In over the next few weeks.

Comments received will feed into the development of the UKRF Recovery Manifesto which will be released in draft form (for further consultation) at the UK Recovery Walk in Glasgow in September.

As part of the manifesto development (amongst other things) we are in the process of organising follow-up UKRF Regional conferences which will kick off in September and we aim to hold these in most, if not all, of the UK regions from September until Spring 2011 when we will hold the 2nd UKRF National Conference.

The most popular workshop at the May conference was ‘Service User Involvement and Recovery’ and Dave Rankine (Lancashire DAAT’s SU Involvement Officer) found himself facilitating a couple of huge groups. There was loads to talk about in the workshops and not enough time.

So we are really pleased to let you know that there will be a follow-up conference, which we are organising with the NTA, totally dedicated to Service User Involvement and Recovery in the North-West. This event will take place at the Gujarat Centre in Preston on the 9th of September and is open to Service Users and people from the Recovery Community within the North-West.

You’ll notice we’ve suggested the two groups might be separate when you might hope ‘Service Users’ would be part of ‘Recovery Communities’. This ‘separation’ (real or otherwise) will be explored at the conference.

The programme for the conference, which will be an all day affair, will be circulated soon but we can confirm it will be focused around workshops exploring Service User Involvement, the launching of new regional North-West Recovery Forums and the development of firmer links with Recovery Communities in each of the five North-West regions.

There will be a couple of speakers and they will address SU involvement and Recovery within the context of the new ‘era’ we find ourselves in. Notions of the ‘Big Society’, as promoted by the new Con/Lib Dem government will be explored.

Service Users and people in Recovery Communities are part of this ‘Big Society’ and the UKRF believes there is much work that needs to be done to define what ‘Big Society’ actually means within Recovery Communities. More importantly, in these challenging times, we need to make ‘Big Society’ work for those who are most vulnerable.

There are many paths to Recovery and we make them as we walk them.

For booking details please see the email below from Mark Gilman, NTA North-West Manager.

“Those of you that have seen the DVD ‘Once Upon a Time in the North West’ will know about the North West Recovery Forum but for those of you that haven’t seen the DVD (copies available from Suzanne Rileysuzanne.riley@nta-nhs.org.uk) there is clearly a fit between the pioneering recovery work that has taken place in the North West and emerging ideas around ‘Social Capital’, ‘Recovery Capital’ and the ‘Big Society’.

We are currently in the process of updating all our contacts for membership of the North West Recovery Forum and if you, or anyone else you are in contact with, would like to join the North West Recovery Forum please send your contact details directly to Merritta Hadley (Merritta.hadley@nta-nhs.org.uk) and we will add your details to our list.

We are reviewing the role of traditional service user involvement in the light of the recovery agenda – the North West Service User Forum is alive and well with representatives from most of the local North West areas but there can be some real differences between service user involvement forums and recovery forums.

Most members of the North West Recovery Forum are not using services anymore and therefore, by definition, they are not service users – rather “they are in recovery”. For your information: DDN will be publishing a list of groups in the next edition (Monday 19th July).

We are also in early discussions with colleagues in the UK Recovery Federation to try and align our recovery forums with the UK Recovery Federation and to this end, we are holding an all day joint event with UKRF at the Gujarat Hindu Society Centre, Preston on 9 September 2010.

To register for this event on 9 September 2010 email Merritta Hadley (Merritta.hadley@nta-nhs.org.uk) by Friday 30 July.

Workshops will be organised around the 5 sub-regions (Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Merseyside) so that we come away with the bare bones of 5 sub-regional recovery forums. Whilst there is no charge for this event, we will need to make sure that all 22 North West localities are represented and that places are spread across the 5 sub-regions, so you will be advised of your allocated space on 12 August 2010.

The key note speakers will be:

· Mark Gilman (NTA NW Recovery Forum)
· Noreen Oliver (Recovery Group UK)
· Alistair Sinclair (UK Recovery Federation)

In the meantime, if you would like to discuss your local (or sub-regional) recovery forum arrangements or if you would like one of us to present to your forums, please do not hesitate to ask the relevant NTA Deputy Regional Manager as follows:

Lancashire (Phil Conley)
Cumbria (Mark Harris)
Greater Manchester (Susan Johal)
Cheshire (Ian Houghton)
Merseyside (Abby Jones)

There is also an opportunity for sponsoring organisations to have exhibition stands and stalls around the edge of the main auditorium on the 9th September 2010 – please discuss this further with Suzanne Riley (suzanne.riley@nta-nhs.org.uk).

Please do forward details of this event to any interested colleagues and please note the closing date to register for this event is Friday 30 July.

Best regards
Mark Gilman
NTA North-West Manager”