Foreword

It is a great pleasure to write this introduction to the Granby Community Mental Health Group's annual report for 2005-06, which demonstrates continuing success and growth of our two services: Mary Seacole House and the Advocacy project.

The management and staff carry out an important and often thankless task on behalf of GCMHG and I am grateful to them.

I would like to congratulate all staff, particularly Carol Sowande, Manager MSH on successfully receiving the Investors in People Award. This is another and clear external recognition of the abilities and skills of our staff. Well done to all concerned.

I am encouraged by the positive relationships that we have built over the past year with service users, statutory and voluntary agencies and the local communities. This annual report provides a summary of our objectives, approaches, and progress of ongoing and planned future efforts.

Our planning is based on what users tell us, with management and staff identifying resources and working with other agencies to ensure that needs are appropriately and sensitively met.

Our future challenges include maintaining the high standards of service provision, retaining and finding newer sources of funding and to explore delivering other services currently not possible given the size of our present accommodation. We would welcome your support in finding suitable larger premises.

I do hope you enjoy reading this report. No progress is possible without the dedicated, innovative, and determined staff. I should like to thank them all for their unsung efforts and commitment. I would also like to thank our funders, Liverpool City Council and Central Primary Care Trust.

Naseem Anwar

Chairperson

Granby Community Mental Heath Group - Secretary's Report

The past year has been a challenging period for both Mary Seacole House and the Advocacy Project. I would like to express my thanks to our staff for their dedication and commitment in meeting our objectives, thus providing a service that meets the needs of our members.

I would like to thank my colleagues for their support during my year as secretary also a special thanks to Ron Persaud for his assistance and support in carrying out our duties of the Personnel Sub Committee.

Thank you also to the other members of the Personnel Sub Committee for their hard work through the year.

I would like to welcome our new recruit, congratulations to Simon Torkington in successfully completing his probationary period as Advocacy Development Officer. I would like to wish him success in his new role.

I hope people will read the various reports as this will give you an incite to the work of Granby Community Mental Health Group.

Best wishes to all for the future.

Karen Mello

Secretary

Granby Community Mental Heath Group -Treasurer's report

I would like to express my thanks to Carol Sowande and Marie O'Sullivan for their patience and help during the early stages of my office as treasurer. It has been a steep learning curve for me.

Like most organisations similar to ours the greatest challenge is one of resources, financial resource, human resource etc. I am pleased to report that in spite of these constraints we have been successful in delivering a quality service to our service users.

Personnel Sub Committee

I would like to express my thanks to my colleagues for their support both in recruitment and other human resource issues. A special acknowledgement to R Bashir who took on the role as Acting Deputy Manager for MSH whilst still conducting some of her duties as Outreach Development Officer, and also for coordinating the Equality & Diversity training programmes which is a valuable source of income generation for Mary Seacole House.

Our managers and staff are constantly exploring various options for future development a number of which are actively being pursued.

I would urge our readers to spend a little time reading our financial report prepared by our auditors, Mc Farlane & Co.

I would like to remind all our readers that as a charitable organisation we are happy to receive all legitimate donations. Our Administrators will be pleased to advise you with this.

Finally I would like to thank my colleagues (GCMHG) for their support, the staff for their cooperation and tolerance of my never ending presence and our service users for their warm and welcoming engagement.

Ron Persaud


Treasurer

Granby Community Mental Heath Group - Manager's report

This year has not been without its difficulties but we continue to provide services appropriate to our members needs and are constantly looking at ways of enhancing and improving them.

The Floating Support and Carer's projects are both functioning extremely well and have now become invaluable services to our members.

The carers' service has doubled in numbers since last year, therefore highlighting the number of people within our community that require that type of support service, especially from our BRM communities.

The increase in referrals has forced us into applying for funding to recruit a Carers Worker whose role would be to work specifically with BRM communities. Let's hope that I will be able to give a positive report on this next year.

October 2005 celebrated the bi-centenary anniversary of Mary Seacole's birth. Mary Seacole House held an Open Day to commemorate the day and our members and staff produced a play that told the story about the everyday life of Mary Seacole. We also had Mary Seacole grace us with her presence for the day (see front cover).

On the day we were also very pleased to receive a picture of Mary Seacole which was drawn and donated to us by Anne Clark a local artist. Unfortunately Anne couldn't be with us on the day but a message of thanks was forwarded to her. We felt that it was only appropriate to have the picture put into a beautiful frame and a small plaque inserted behind the frame which reads:-

December 2005 Mary Seacole House was very pleased to hear that it had met with the required standard of the Investors In People UK. This is a tremendous achievement for the project overall but more importantly to the staff team. Our Investors in People plaque now hangs proudly in our hallway.

This last year has brought about changes to the staff team. We engaged one new member of staff into Mary Seacole House - Dianah Chibaya who is a Floating Support Worker and there was the departure of 3 other members of staff, Louise Ryan, Tillean Gordan and Vinny Murphy.

We also lost two of our committee members, Suzanne Eynon and Phil Gore. I would like to thank them all for all the hard work and commitment that they put into the organisation and send them our best wishes for the future.

I would also like to say a special thank you to all those people who have been involved with the project, both staff teams for their hard work and commitment and in particular our members who have sent the staff numerous thank you cards, flowers, chocolates, etc. in their appreciation of what the organisation has done to help them. On behalf of us all I would like to express our thanks to the management committee for their ongoing guidance, assistance and support.

Last but not least our gratitude to Liverpool City Council our main funding body who continue to fund our projects, all the other funding bodies that find us worthy of awarding grant aid and also those anonymous and non-anonymous people who support our service and donate funds year after year, we are extremely grateful to you all.

Carol Sowande

Manager

Granby Community Mental Heath Group - ADVOCATE MANAGER'S REPORT  

The theme of the last 12 months within the Advocacy Project has been based on Change and Development within our service provision.

With the departure of Jackie Maguire (Advocacy Development Officer) in April 2005, we experienced a decrease in the number of new referrals to the project. In order to address this situation we focused our energies on raising our profile at every opportunity.

I was given the opportunity to attend a residential Common Purpose 20:20 Graduate Leadership programme in Buckinghamshire in June 2005. During the training I was fortunate to meet and hold discussions with ministers at 10 Downing Street and the Houses of Parliament. As one of forty students from very diverse backgrounds, we traveled to the European Parliament in Brussels where once again discussions were held with key decision makers of social policies. It was indeed a unique experience to inform many of the decision makers of the work carried out by both the Mary Seacole House and the Advocacy Project.

We celebrated the 10-year anniversary of our Peer Advocacy Training Programme on the 8th July. Students comprising of service users and staff working within mental health care on completion of their training programme, attended their graduation ceremony on that wonderful sunny day. Once again we were very fortunate to have a guest speaker namely Dean Sullivan (aka Jimmy Corkhill from Brookside) who give generously of his time, meeting and greeting many of our service users, tutors, staff members and guests.

Dean was very impressed by the work carried our by the Mary Seacole House and the Advocacy Project and placed a request to film some of the project. This was featured on his Granada television show My North West.

In recognition of the 200th Anniversary of Mary Seacole, the Advocacy Project and the Mary Seacole House set about organizing a celebration event, acknowledging the service provisions of Granby Community Mental Health Group.

The Kente Cloth photographic project was launched on Friday 14th October 2005. The work featured works of art produced by service users of the Mary Seacole House, photographs of service users, staff members and outside agencies who have provided services for our clients.

This work was co-ordinated by John Hollis Davies with monies secured from Awards for All and is still exhibited throughout our building.

The unique colourful Kente cloth design depicts the history and custom of our African heritage, and features in all our promotional materials.

As mentioned in the first part of my report, we were operating for some time without an Advocacy Development Officer. This was rectified at the beginning of January 2006 with the appointment of Mr Simon Torkington with monies from Central Primary Care Trust.

Since his appointment we have seen a significant increase in new clients, with greater visibility and engagement on psychiatric wards, social care agencies, police stations and regional secure units within our catchment area. On completion of his orientation programme and probationary period, Simon has had to hit the ground running with the assistance of Evlynne Opomu, Ron Persuad, Ged Roberts and Carol Sowande in my absence. I wish to thank all those individuals who gave support, guidance and encouragement to both Simon and Evlynne during the early part of 2006.

Both Simon Torkington and Evlynne Opomu (Mental Health Office Coordinator) have applied themselves to continuing their Law Degree at JM University. They are now in their third year of study with unfortunately no financial support from the Advocacy Project. What is provided though is a somewhat flexible working environment, which tries to facilitate time off for their study days.

As you will read from Simon Torrington's report we have continued to represent service users and our clients at ward rounds, managers hearings and attended at MHRT's. We have also endeavored to work more closely with the members and staff of the Mary Seacole House on legal issues, second medical opinion reports, centre activities, day trips and social events.

This partnership has resulted in some of our clients being referred to the MSH after they have disengaged with the Advocacy Project.

Reflecting back on the past year some items still remains on our agenda. We still need to secure larger premises in order to utilize the knowledge and human resources we have at our disposal. Training and Consultancy along with providing work placement opportunities within Advocacy for our client group remains a priority. The potential to have solicitors specializing in mental health law, along with respite care supported accommodation based within this long awaited new building, offers greater choice and flexibility to our client group and indeed our staff members.

Judith H Cummings

Advocate Manager

Granby Community Mental Heath Group - Mental Health Office Co-ordinator

This my second year as Mental Health Office Co-ordinator and the year got off to a good start with a new addition to the staff team. Simon Torkington started in January 2006 as the new Development Officer.

I have been able to find my feet in this post quite quickly and feel fully settled in my role. Working in conjunction with the new Development Officer I have been able to successfully meet the needs of the Project in the absence of the Manager, which included jointly leading on a Funding Meeting with Comic Relief.

I also assisted in the co-ordination of this years Peer Advocacy Training Programme, which starts on Wednesday 20 September 2006 and will finish on 6 December 2006 all due to the funding award made by Comic Relief.

All in all it has been a successful year.

Evlynne Opomu

Mental Health Office Co-Ordinator

ADVOCACY DEVELOPMENT OFFICERS REPORT

Firstly I would like to introduce myself as the new Advocacy Development Officer at the Advocacy Project. I was offered the position in November and have been in the post since 16th January 2006.

Prior to my appointment and second interview I was grateful for an invitation to attend the 200th Anniversary of Mary Seacole which gave me a great opportunity to get a feel for Mary Seacole House, its members and the vibrant hive of activity and pride that the event had produced from both staff and members.

At the start of my role I was given an induction and an orientation programme was put in place by Judith to introduce me to the intricacies of the mental health system and make contact with key agencies in the community and also at all psychiatric units through out our catchment area. As a part of the orientation I was extremely privileged to have the opportunity to observe Ged Roberts from Peter Edwards Law at first hand to see his approach to clients and his interaction with Mental Health professionals. This took place at High and Medium Secure Units advising clients and representing them at Mental Health Review Tribunals (MHRT) and hospital managers hearings.

Following a couple of months of tuition, outreach, public relations work and hands on experience, I am now receiving referrals and there has been an increase in the number of clients on our books. I am seeing clients of my own within the community and in the local psychiatric units with the support and guidance of Ged Roberts. I would at this point like to acknowledge and thank Evlynne Opomu, Ronald Persuad, Carol Sowande, Reihana Bashir and all the staff at Mary Seacole House for their continued guidance and support now and during my formative time here.