Tag Archives: western-og

Western Area FYI – Issue 3

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Winter will soon be gone and we can begin to look forward this month to 11 hours of daylight and also hopefully this third issue of FYI will brighten your day. FYI, is your monthly round up of all things family support and early intervention/ prevention.

Download Issue 3 

(Note: Newsletter will download directly to your device.  Look out for the pop-up box and click on open file when it appears)

If you would like to contribute upcoming consultations, training, articles, or events that practitioners from the community, voluntary or statutory sectors within the Western Trust will find useful please contact:

Dr Priscilla Magee – Mobile  07880723076     priscilla.magee@westerntrust.hscni.net

Paul Sweeney – Mobile  07387259117
paul.sweeney@westerntrust.hscni.net

NI Rare Disease Partnership

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The Northern Ireland Rare Disease Partnership (NIRDP) are thrilled to introduce their newly devised education and upskilling programme, “Understanding Rare”. This initiative is designed to foster a deeper understanding and empathy towards the unique needs of the 1 in 17/110K individuals (many of which are children) living with rare diseases or conditions in Northern Ireland, and many of whom experience acute mental health/financial/work/housing or isolation needs alongside carers or family members who are also experiencing these challenges. Some of these “Rare Stories” can be found here

NIRDP understand that mental health providers and Helplines NI (of which we are also a member) play a pivotal role in offering support and guidance to these individuals. Therefore, we have crafted a free 1.5-hour remote learning Continuing Professional Development (CPD) session that aims to equip mental health or helpline and support staff with the necessary knowledge and skills to address their needs more effectively.

Through this short programme, participants will be better prepared to:

  • Understand the complex needs of those with rare diseases in our community.
  • Empathise with their unique challenges and experiences through the sharing of Rare Stories
  • Signpost more successfully to organisations like the NIRDP or other rare condition organisations, facilitating a network of comprehensive support.

NIRDP are pleased to inform you that this initiative is generously funded by the Community Foundation/DOH in Northern Ireland, a testament to the significance and potential impact of this programme. We kindly then encourage you to share this invaluable opportunity with your staff, colleagues, and those in your organisation responsible for supporting CPD initiatives. For further information or to express your interest, please do not hesitate to contact us directly or share this email with colleagues within or beyond your own organisation that may find this matter of interest, especially in training or HR departments.

 

 

CCP Regional Conference: Caring for yourself and others – Nurturing connections for wellness

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Working with young children is acknowledged as being challenging both physically and psychologically. Even so, Early Years Educators demonstrate very high commitment to the children in their care. However, you cannot pour from an empty cup, and in this Keynote Mary explains the impact of stress on our lives, and looks at how Educators can support their own wellbeing and avoid burnout. Participants will also have the opportunity to attend 2 of 3 workshops, details of all workshops are on page 2.

Download Conference Flyer 

Conference details: 
Date: Thursday 29th February 2024
Time: Registration from 9am, the conference will take place 9.30am – 3pm
Venue: Tullyglass Hotel, Ballymena

 

Safer Internet Day 2024

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Safer Internet Day 2024 takes places on 6th February with the theme of ‘Inspiring Change?  Making a Difference, Managing Influence and Navigating Change Online’.  The online world is a fast moving space with a host of new and emerging trends.  For practitioners, parents and carers who have responsibility for children and young people, it is often hard to keep up as well as understand the impact of technology and where the risks might be.

This year, the Western and Northern Trust Digital Safeguarding Steering Groups have partnered up to host a range of masterclasses focusing on these online issues and concerns so that we help practitioners promote safe, responsible and positive use of digital technology for children, young people and their families.

Delivered by a range of experts from across the region and the UK, the workshops will explore:

  • Technology assisted abuse
  • Incels – what they are and how to support young people
  • Online sexual abuse, sextortion and sexploitation
  • Young people and pornography
  • Supporting vulnerable young people online
  • Key messages for practitioners so they can support and advise young people and their families

Full details including Eventbrite booking information are in the flyer below.

Safer Internet Day Feb 2024

Please note for the Technology Assisted Abuse session, all HSC staff can register via LearnHSCNI (linked on brochure). For non HSC staff, please complete booking form below.

Technology Assisted Abuse Booking Form

For more information about Safer Internet Day, click here

 

Increasing help seeking – creating opportunities to engage adults in early interventions to support well-being

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It is estimated in areas of the UK, 17% of the adult population have mental health problems with only 30% of those affected individuals seeking professional help. (McManus, S et.al. 2014) There is a tendency to delay help seeking and problems tend to exacerbate over time. While barriers to help seeking exist, ‘perceived need’ and accessibility has been found to be key barriers to help-seeking. (Brown, J.S.L et. Al, 2022)

ASCERT, the South Eastern and Western Health and Social Care Trusts have been working to bring support to people at a much earlier stage. We have created 3 free on- line self-help resources with workbooks that can be downloaded and visual clips that guides the viewer through the workbooks at their own pace.

  • Using Self Compassion to Improve Wellbeing and Support Growth Self Compassion | ASCERT
  • Bend Don’t Break: Low intensity CBT based self-help to support resilience

https://www.ascert.biz/bend-dont-break/

 

Engaging workshops: From September 2023 until March 2024, 9 psychoeducational workshops, have been organised via zoom to engage participants in the work, and build motivation to make use of the on-line interventions. This work is early intervention and not aimed people with more serious embedded challenges.

Evaluation: Each of the psychoeducational workshops will have an evaluation and each of the on-line interventions has an evaluation component on its web platform, all be it qualitative, to gauge impact.

You Tube Clips to support well-being: Additional You Tube Clips to support conversations on well-being have been developed through ASCERT and the South Eastern H&SCT with written resources the viewer can download from the description on the You Tube site.

References

Brown, J.S.L et. al. How Can We Actually Change Help-Seeking Behaviour for Mental Health Problems among the General Public? Development of the ‘PLACES’ Model. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19, 2831.

McManus, S.; Bebbington, P.E.; Jenkins, R.; Brugha, T. Mental Health and Wellbeing in England: Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey 2014; NHS Digital: Leeds, UK, 2016.

Calendar of events

The pyscho-educational sessions below are aimed at applying the content for one’s personal use and development. They are open to any adult including practitioners.

Training for practitioners to use this type of low intensity work as “guided self-help” will have additional training events in the winter of 2024.

It would help practitioners who want to use the resources in their work to have a greater understanding of the content by personal application by attending these pyscho-educational sessions though not mandatory.

Course

 

 Date Time
Bend Don’t Break Tuesday 16th January 24 10am – 1pm
Self-Compassion Tuesday 20th February 24 10am – 1pm
Building Our Children’s Developing Brain Tuesday 12th March 24 10am – 1pm

Sign up for any of the sessions is through Event Brite coordinated by the Western Trust. See the training brochure from the Western Trust  Health Improvement, Equality and Involvement Training Brochure | Western Health & Social Care Trust (hscni.net)

What is coming next.

A 4th on-line intervention is under construction on using the Polyvagal Theory to Support Well-Being and will be ready to pilot in November 2023 through Autism NI and foster carers in the South Eastern Trust.

The self-help booklet is currently on the South Eastern Trust’s website.

Nervous-System-Brochure-Final.pdf (hscni.net)