Part of the day was promoted via BBC Radio Scotland which you can listen to here (click 6.12am) where Helena Macleod from Bridge a Gap, the event organiser, spoke about a need to create “a true sense of community to support mental health in rural areas” and promoted the Moray Wellbeing Hub’s ethos as a mechanism for supporting this.
This conference was organised by Helena from ‘Bridge a Gap’ (www.bridgeagap.co.uk) and was designed to bring together many people from the areas of Highland Moray to share their experiences of wellbeing within a rural community. I attended with Joel Hockney, a fellow champion and Holly Hendry of the SRN.
I had never been to Strathpeffer so that was the first surprise – what an amazing town! The conference was being held in the Pavilion, a beautiful building, like a village hall with extras.
We had some breakfast and then settled in for the first part of the day. The day was hosted by Jim Hume MSP and Convenor of the National Rural Mental Health Forum. The welcome address was given by Graham Morgan MBE, who identifies as having a diagnosis of schizophrenia, and is the Engagement Officer for the Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland and a special advisor to HUG. His talk was very measured and inspiring.
The next three speakers had just 10 minutes each to get across some quite high-powered statistics and facts which were sometimes a bit beyond me. However here are some points I did note down. Professor Sarah Skerratt spoke about the findings of the National Rural Mental Health Survey Scotland which was full of information on a wide range of topics. One thing I took from this was that you can be remote by your location (i.e. even living in a fairly large town or city) and not just within a rural setting. DR Patty Lozano-Casal, of SeeMe Scotland, spoke about supporting mentally healthy workplaces and highlighted a video called the ‘The Power of OK’ which came from one of their previous campaigns. Next was Paula Shiels, Senior Mental Health Nurse with NHS 24, who gave a very thorough overview of the mental health support that can be obtained through the NHS 24 scheme. I noted that there is a dedicated phone number for self-directed CBT called ‘Living Life’ on 0800 328 9655 as well as a national cCBT (computer CBT) which is now available across the whole of Scotland. All of these services can be accessed on the NHS 24 website.
Next came the Keynote speaker of the day, Maureen Watt MSP, Minister for Mental Health in Scotland. Her speech focussed on the Scottish Governments vision of a shared future for mental health and drew heavily on their mental health strategy and, in particular, Action 12: “Support the further development of the National Rural Mental Health Forum to reflect the unique challenges presented by rural isolation”. There was then a short Q&A session hosted by Sarah-Anne Muñoz from UHI with the previous speakers.
All of that by 11 am! Then a quick break, with some invited guests having a private Q&A with Maureen Watt. After the break, there was an on-stage on-sofas discussion led by Robyn (Director of Twin-Spirited) with Maree Todd MSP, Maria Roberts (Youth Highland Coordinator) and Kit Fraser of Hootananny Restaurant. This was a powerful discussion on a wide range of subjects with each of the participants sharing some of their stories and experiences. I was impressed with Maria and her struggles with depression from an early age and her determination to not let that stop her from contributing to her local community. Robyn posed some difficult questions around suicide with examples of doctors who had ended their lives despite obviously knowing where they could have got help had they wish to do so. During this debate we were asked if anyone wanted to share any stories about their own experiences and Joel, from MWH, got up and told a very moving account of how he realised that he was the one who needed to take control of his stress-induced seizures and found that running daily focussed him to such an extent that he has not now had a seizure for a year; despite being told that the best he could hope for would be a seizure a day for the rest of his life. Many times through the rest of the day his story was referred to and praised.
Before lunch, Jenny Campbell of The Resilience Engine gave us a quick look at the work she does to help people and organisations build resilience into their daily lives. She would be following up on this in the afternoon.
After lunch, we spilt into two groups and I had to present a 5-minute overview of the work of the Moray Wellbeing Hub in a ‘Dragon’s Den’ style to around 50 people and 2 judges. There was not enough time to say everything, but I felt that it went well and I was asked some good questions afterwards. There was a prize for the ‘winner’ but this was not really the point of the exercise – it was more about a chance to share what we do with a wider audience and to hear about great projects run by people. The winner was ‘Where Today?’ a community transport scheme for Badenoch and Strathspey.
Jenny Campbell then expanded on her previous talk with a discussion and activities about building resilience and recognising what helps and what does not. For those of us familiar with WRAP, this was like a refresher course but Jenny was an engaging speaker who could back up her techniques with years of experience and data.
Finally, we all came back together for a very quick conversation café and I chose to be a part of the discussion on what to say to the Scottish Government. Our table decided that Transport and Mindfulness were key issues that the government can make difference with. It was felt that we should stop seeing public transport as something to make money out of (by private companies) but it should be seen as a vital resource for all, especially in rural areas. The government has already signed up to bring mindfulness into schools (a Westminster initiative) but so far this has not been implemented. We would like to encourage them to do this as soon as possible.
Jim Hume gave the closing comments and we all headed home.
All together this was a conference that was full of high ideas and statistics from some and moving and inspiring stories from others. Just about the right balance for the day. I made some connections that hopefully will help us in the Hub to engage with young people and workplaces in the future.
Ewan, MWH Champion
It was an honour to part of the rural wellbeing event as someone who has been a champion of the Moray Wellbeing Hub for just over a year and interacting with other fantastic organisations and individuals that have far, far more experience than I do; passing on bits of knowledge or having opportunities to collaborate on projects that would have only occurred meeting people face-to-face.
As someone who has great anxiety about public speaking, I believe it highlights just how comfortable everyone who wanted to speak had the opportunity to do so without feeling belittled or ignored. The opportunity for a person – a young adult at that – to speak about their personal experiences with mental wellbeing (in relation to breaking communication barriers) is a testament to the effort of the organisers to ensure serious discussions between individuals while maintaining a relaxed setting.
Joel, MWH Champion
