For those that know me, I’m a volunteer tutor at a local Mental Health Charity, Workspace Lancaster. I’ve been there since January, and have loved it. I’ve also been with NCBI Lancashire for two years now.
Very recently, the NHS announced that it was withdrawing funding from the project – which means that ultimately it has been forced to close within the very near and coming months. It has driven me absolutely barmy; the worst thing has been not knowing what was going to happen mixed with waiting for decisions to be made. Many a time have I contemplated throwing in the towel.
What this means for service users is that on September 30th of this year, they will not be able to go to Workspace. There have been many a number of ongoing things at Workspace – not only my web design classes but Tai Chi, confidence building, pottery, woodwork as well as paper shredding and contract packing. All of these (if the NHS had their way), would cease to exist…. and what this means for me is that I wouldn’t have been able to continue teaching there.
What I have managed to do is to broker a deal and act as a conduit between the Employment Development Worker at Making Space (Workspace) and my other place of work, NCBI Lancashire. This means that NCBI is very kindly letting us use the hall to continue classes.
So – the decision has been made. Web Development work will be continuing at NCBI, as well as any other sub projects that I set up. I have some great ideas for sub projects – I was discussing them with the class today; these include some photography work, music generation (as well as mixing), some video work, as well as a creative project that I’m not going to go into detail yet. As for Tai Chi (as well as Confidence Building) I’m not at liberty to directly discuss what’s going on with those (as I’ve not had any dealings in it); but there are talks in progress. Some of the other aspects of Workspace are also moving on to pastures new… look out for details being announced.
On Thursday, there is a NHS Question Time event being held – it has been organized by Elham Kashefi of Lancashire LINk. I’ve submitted a question that I hope is answered, and it’s one I’ll share with you; let me know what you think.
With the closure of local Mental Health service Workspace (Making Space), what alternative options are in place for:
- Service users that have a Forensic History and are not allowed within a certain distance of children (for example, The Helm which is above a NHS Dentist).
- Service users which are banned from other projects but are fine engaging with Workspace, or ones that do not like alternatives.
- Service users which have a low to moderate need, and so will be excluded from other services but still have a need all the same.