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Menampilkan postingan dari April, 2017

The BAT Project in North Wales

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Staff from the Ablett Unit in Rhyl with voluntary sector agencies including Vale of Clwyd Mind, Unllais, Therapy Dogs Nationwide and Twix the dog. I recently found out about a new partnership project in North Wales called BAT - Bringing Agencies Together. It's all about supporting people who have been in contact with mental health services, specifically hospital, and bridging that gap between leaving the ward and returning to the community. The BAT Project has been running in the two neighbouring counties of Conwy and Denbighshire for just over a year now. It is a massive geographical area to cover, taking in the sandy beaches of the North Wales coast from Llandudno across to Prestatyn, and sweeping south across parts of the Snowdonia National Park, east into the Clwydian Hills and right down to Llangollen. On its southern edge Denbighshire borders Powys, so we can definitely count the locals there as our near neighbours!  Hannah Luhde-Thompson (4th from left in photo) is the Impro...

LGBTQ+ - setting up a new Powys group

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This week's guest author introduces himself: My name is Shaun and I am a volunteer at Mid Powys Mind. I should start by saying that LGBTQ+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered, Questing) is not a mental health condition although it has a huge impact on mental health. Before we decided to have a LGBTQ+ peer support group I read an article that said 70% of people who identify as trans will contemplate suicide, members of the LGBTQ+ community are twice as likely to developed a mental health condition and LGBTQ+ youths are twice as likely to attempt suicide. The reasons for this are isolation, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia and ignorance. As an openly gay man, who has a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder , this didn't shock me as much as as it should have. What shocked me was how little support there is in Powys; although Powys is the largest county in Wales it doesn't even have a sexual health clinic. Mid Powys Mind's Wellbeing Coordinator asked m...