The Regional Development Team enjoyed time at Head Office in
Saunderton this week. It’s always good to
come down and connect with colleagues and make sure they don’t forget us! We’ve also been out and about in our areas as
well.
Last week Liz was in London meeting with Newham CDOP before
travelling up to Staffordshire to meet with people from Health. Shirley and I have also been travelling,
spending four days in Middlesbrough and encountering some lively weather and
even a power cut during our stay. We
managed to fit in some really positive meetings though.
On arriving on Tuesday we met with Teesside Hospice and
their ‘Forget Me Not’ service before moving on to CDOP Middlesbrough to find
out how they operate.
Wednesday found us with Mark Davis at Middlesbrough
Voluntary Development Agency (MVDA).
Mark has been a great ‘find’ in the area with his local knowledge and
the host of fantastic contacts he’s linked us with.
Thursday and we were back at MVDA as we were invited to
attend an event centred around the ‘Best Start Boro’ initiative, a 10 year
project to improve outcomes for children from conception to their fourth
birthday. We’re hopeful that the area of
bereavement will have a place on the list of local priorities. The
James Cook University Hospital was our next port of call to link up with some
lovely people at the bereavement services team before we headed off to the
coast to Redcar where we met with Lawrence at The Junction, a great service
which offers a whole raft of support to local children, young people and their
families. We loved their vision of Belonging , Resilience, Belief,
Opportunity, Potential. Wouldn’t it be great if everybody could fulfil such
a vision?
Energy levels perhaps should’ve been on the wane by Friday
but there was no chance of that when we visited Heather at Together Middlesbrough
seeing the fantastic community initiatives at the Trinity Centre before moving
on to meet with Middlesbrough MIND. Our
trip ended with a visit to MP Andy McDonald’s office. Andy was very positive about our work, really
understood our remit and pointed us in the direction of more contacts. He also offered further support and was keen
to be updated.
So as we hurtle towards the end of another year the project
is progressing well. We’re looking
forward to moving it forward some more in 2014!
Rich Stafford
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