The Recovery In-Sight Centre launched at a special conference event on Thursday 29th April 2010 to mark it’s first birthday.

The Centre’s director, Dr Heather Straughan and team members Linda Stoneman, Ruth Redd, Laura Francis, Andrew Fairhurst and Bharat Hirani, welcomed colleagues and friends as speakers and guests to the Board Room and Central Committee Room at the Maclaurin Building in the Business Park, Hatfield, where the enterprise has been based since September 2009.

Over 60 people attended the event, at which leading researchers, policy makers and clinicians in the field of recovery and user involvement in the UK spoke on the theme for the launch, “Service Users in the Lead”.

The event was inaugurated by the Worshipful Mayor of the Borough of Welwyn Hatfield, Councillor Kim Langley and the Mayor of Hatfield Town, Councillor Caron Juggins, who helped Dr Straughan to cut a decorative ribbon stretched across the logo of The Recovery In-Sight Centre displayed on screen.

The Centre’s team had decorated the rooms with their framed City & Guilds qualifications, trophies from business prizes and awards for innovation, accreditation from Middlesex University, published Recovery In-Sight manuals and books team members had written on their own experiences and on user-research.

Balloons streamed throughout the rooms picking up the colours of the logo of The Recovery In-Sight Centre.  Neal’s Yard and Boots had kindly donated lavender sprays and creams for the guests, and Recovery Devon kindly donated copies of their recovery poetry publication ‘Beyond the Storms’.

Click to download the programme for the day   the-recovery-in-sight-centre

Dr Jan Wallcraft and Dr Heather Straughan presented on the findings of focus groups and self-report questionnaires that trainees had undertaken before starting a Recovery In-Sight course and after finishing the course. These findings regroup the past five courses that have been run in the community from September 2008 - April 2010. launch

Click on the links below for the presentations:

David Crepaz-Keay, Mental Health Foundation  (awaited)

• Dr Glenn Roberts, Recovery Devon  launch1

• Sarah Yiannoullou, National Service User Network   launch2

• Dr Mike Slade, Institute of Psychiatry  29-april-2010

• Mary Nettle, User Consultant  launch

• Dr Rachel Perkins, South West London & St Georges Mental Health NHS Trust  launch3

• Dr David Armes, User-Researcher  launch4

In preparation for the day, BBC film-makers Bob Walters and Ruth Tidmarsh, together with the Centre’s team members Benit Maru and Linda Stoneman and many trainers, trainees and volunteers had spent three months putting together a three-part DVD on the work of The Recovery In-Sight Centre and how this had been of benefit to them.

The DVD portrayed the Centre’s range of services, the business aspect to the socially-orientated company soon to become a social enterprise, and the future plans and vision for the Centre.

Ruth Badger, from The Apprentice fame, who is business advisor to The Recovery In-Sight Centre, spoke about the excellent business model and managerial skills of the Centre, and how the Centre’s work, employing people with mental health problems was a testimony to how beneficial the services it provides were, as people became part of the solution in helping themselves and others in their recovery. This testimony from within gave validation to the quality of the recovery services and the uniqueness of the user-led enterprise and how well it was functioning.

Joe McGann, actor and supporter of The Recovery In-Sight Centre, spoke of how useful the services were and how he saw the enterprise set to develop in the future as a galleon sailing off into the sunset, conquering new lands. Joe and his wife Tamazin had previously visited the Centre and were given a copy of the Recovery In-Sight training.

The DVD on The Recovery In-Sight Centre’s work, together with a short film made from the launch event, will be uploaded shortly. Watch this space!

Linda Stoneman made a film momento of the day from the still photographs she took     http://vimeo.com/11351314

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