Member spotlight september 2017

Member spotlight: September 2017

Penumbra in a few lines?

Penumbra is one of Scotland’s largest mental health charities. We support 1600 people every week and employ around 400 staff. We believe people can and do recover from mental ill health and our services support people to live a meaningful and fulfilling life so they can achieve recovery.

What are your main activities? 

We envisage a society where people with mental health problems expect recovery and are accepted, supported and have the resources they need to fulfil their potential. As part of our ambition to improve mental health and wellbeing for people and communities we provide a wide variety of outcomes-focused services. This includes: supported housing and living services, services for people who experience Alcohol Related Brain Damage (ARBD), homelessness services crisis support, 24/7 Crisis Centre, employment support, community and social inclusion services, peer support, self-harm services, a Wellness Centre, and services for young people.

We also provide mental health training, work to increase public knowledge about mental health, and campaign to influence national and local government policy.

What are your priorities for 2017-2018?

2017 is turning out to be a busy year for Penumbra. In March we launched a website for a powerful set of mental health assessment tools we have developed – I.ROC wellbeing.  I.ROC wellbeing is validated measure of individual recovery and a set of online applications (including a mobile app) that help organisation capture, track and measure recovery data.

I.ROC wellbeing is already being used by several organisations across the UK, and translated versions are being created for organisations in Spain, Netherlands, and further afield. We hope the new website – IROCwellbeing.com – will help even more organisation find out about this innovative new approach to mental health and wellbeing.

This year we have also been working as a partner in the Scottish Government’s Distress Brief Intervention (DBI) pilot in Aberdeen. The DBI is a short intervention for people in distress who do not need emergency medical treatment.  Trained DBI staff based in the community help people to manage difficult emotions and problem situations early on, and come up with a ‘distress plan’ to prevent future crisis. (www.dbi.scot)

We bring significant early intervention expertise to the DBI pilot having developed several 1st Response services. Like 1^st Response, the DBI pilot focuses on early intervention support to help people manage their own mental health and ultimately to achieve recovery.

Where can we hear from you?  

• Our website

For more about Penumbra visit our website www.penumbra.org.uk

• Social media

Or find us on social media

twitter.com/penumbra_scot

Facebook.com/PenumbraScotland

instagram.com/penumbrascotland