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 NEWSLETTER May 2010

New Director of Charity: The Committee is pleased to announce that it has appointed Mr. Philip Le Claire as the new Director of Jersey FOCUS on mental health. Philip was the director of Jersey Autism a very successful charity that he founded and developed from scratch. We are looking forward to welcoming him aboard and the charity will undoubtedly benefit from his great drive and energy. Philip will take up post on the 4^th May and I will be departing as Director on the 14^th May.

I have enjoyed my time working with the charity enormously and am very grateful to all the Members who helped to make my time with you such a delight. I would also like to extend my sincere thanks to the small but dedicated team of staff that have made my job so much easier with their unstinting commitment and support. I will of course remain a friend of FOCUS so no doubt those of you who go along to our Family Fundays will be harangued by my familiar cries from the bottle stall – ’the only stall where you are guaranteed to win a prize!’

Carer Support Manager: our new Carer Support Manager. Stephen McCrimmon is making great strides meeting many of our carers and working on new services to support our carers locally. He holds a weekly meeting in St Pauls centre (next to St Thomas’s Church) every Wednesday from 14.00hrs until 17.00hrs for anyone looking for initial advice or just a chat about what the service can offer. Group support is available through Jersey Focus on Mental Health monthly carers meetings that take place on every second Tuesday of the month at 19.30hrs at the Poplars Centre at Overdale. In addition Stephen will shortly be founding a pro-active Group, ’living in FOCUS Experience’, designed to help people who find it dfficult caring for someone with a mental health problem or illness. If you wish to refer anyone to this new service Stephen can be contacted on telephone number 07797 717 767 or through his email address: smccrimmonjfomh@gmail.com.

New Offices:  The fieldwork team are now located at the Charity’s new offices on the second floor of 4 Wharf Street. Patricia Winchester, our patient Advocate, Stephen McCrimmon and Sam Bolam, our Project Manager, can all be contacted through Offices number 14/15 in the building which is situated in the small street behind the Pomme D’or Hotel.

Partnership Programme: The Programme is nearing completion. The next session on the 22^nd April will bring the Partnership Team together with some local carers to look at some of the issues, such as access to emergency support and information exchange with professionals, which confront carers in their role. Then on the 20^th may there will a strategy day drawing together all the work the partnership team has been engaged in over the last year into what will become the final strategy document. The subsequent final strategy, detailing all the recommendations for the future involvement of service users in service development, evaluation and planning, will be launched on the 9^th June.

Patient Advocacy: whilst the development of advocacy services within the community and elderly services continues to develop very well there are ongoing concerns surrounding the charity’s attempts to deliver an independent advocacy service to inpatients at Orchard House. The charity is seeking an independent external review to look at the issues that continue to make it difficult for the charity to deliver a fully independent advocacy service to inpatients in line with nationally recommended protocols and practice.

Nearly New Shop: we are pleased to report that Pam Hamon, one of our longest serving volunteers at the shop, has agreed to take on the role of managing the shop on a voluntary basis. We are all tremendously grateful to Pam and the dedicated team of volunteers for all their hard work in running our charity shop so well.

Membership of FOCUS: as reported in our last newsletter over time the data on core membership of the charity has become less reliable as people have passed away, or left the Island or perhaps have decided to lapse their membership. We sent the newsletter inviting renewal of subscription to 140 former members and to date have received subscriptions from 21. It is so important to establish and maintain membership as the charity is constituted as an association for its members. We would therefore be grateful if you wish to remain a member and to continue to receive our monthly newsletters if you would be kind enough to confirm this either by sending in your annual subscription of £10 [individual and family membership] or by emailing our new Treasurer, Anita Barker at: anitabarker@jerseymail.co.uk. All cheques for renewal of annual subscription should be sent to Anita at the following address: Rosegarth, La Ruette es Boeufs, Coin Varin, St.Peter JE3 7EQ. Confirmation of wishing to remain a member is as important as the actual subscription itself so please do respond even if you cannot afford to pay the subscription at the moment.

Treasurers report:

For the quarter ended 31^st March 2010 we have received donations totaling a whopping £25,733. This figure is made up as follows; M P Le Brun and her wonder making team £250, anonymous £50, The Oak Foundation 1996 £2472, Dominion Real Estate £273, Structured Finance Management Offshore Ltd £544, Mr Mark Rumbold £200, Rossborough Insurance £1500, Parish of St Ouen £200, RBC- The AH Copp Charitable Trust £5000, The FPC Scotto Charitable Trust £15,000 and Workwise and Social Security £44.

A carpet was very kindly donated to the charity by Mr. Michael Poole. On behalf of Focus I should like to thank him   and Mrs. Clyde-Smith for selling it on our behalf and raising the grand sum of £200.

To date in memory of Zillah Bendelow I have received £3033 and in memory of Malcolm Waddell £405.

A huge thank you to one and all for your fantastic efforts and helping to make this a great quarter.

Anton

Further Content In This Section

NEWSLETTER April 2008