Once again Christmas has come racing towards us and another successful year at CHAPTER is drawing to a close. It is always nice at this busy time of year to take a moment to reflect on the many successes of the year. 2008 has been another very busy year at CHAPTER, Three new projects have begun and our more established projects have continued to thrive.
Throughout 2008 xx Clients received a service from us xx new work placements were set up , xx Clients attended College XX attended In house training courses, Xx gained employment. So well done to everyone.

I hope you will enjoy reading on in this newsletter to find out more about our new projects and developments within our more established projects.

Christmas is also a time to say thank you and show appreciation for continued supports so may I on behalf of all the CHAPTER team thank our, Placement Providers, Volunteers, friends and all the organizations we work with for continuing to make CHAPTER the success it is and wish you all A Very Happy Christmas, and wonderful 2009.

The office will be closed between lunch time on 24th December until 9am on the 2nd of January as all our staff will be taking some time off.

Experience tells us that the majority of our clients will also take a break from placements during this period so it is a good chance for all to recharge the batteries and return refreshed for the new year.

The Mental Health and well being project is part of a much larger project “Target Well Being” which is being delivered across Ellesmere Port by many different organisations and is funded through Big lotteries money.

CHAPTER are delivering a small part of the project which aims through the work we do to improve the mental health and well being of clients in the Ellesmere Port area by promoting the benefits of, and opportunity to get involved in, greater physical activity and healthy eating along side the more traditional work we do helping people engage in voluntary work, work placements and or education.

We will also be running additional confidence building groups in the area which will also incorporate relaxation techniques.

If you live in Ellesmere port and want to know more about this opportunity why not give us a call or talk with your Key worker?

We have been very fortunate to secure funding from Volunteer England to recruit and train volunteers to help us in our work.

This is a fantastic opportunity for us all as once our volunteers are recruited and trained we can increase capacity, providing our clients with additional support or more frequent meetings that the staff have not previously had time to provide. Please be assured you will still have your Key workers amongst the paid staff and any work you do with our volunteers will be closely supervised by your key worker. We call the work our volunteers do with you mentoring, they are fully trained and have undergone criminal records checks. The aims of the additional work will be agreed and reviewed regularly.

Sometimes we all need a bit of extra help to meet our goals, it could be something like support getting to college , using public transport, keeping on top of your written work if you are on one of our courses. what ever the role is it will be agreed well in advance between you and your key worker.

Volunteers will also be helping out project workers in the groups that we run providing a very welcome extra pair of hands. Another area volunteers are supporting us is in the office with admin tasks such as photocopying and filing or answering the phone, so even if you don’t work directly with a volunteer you may well speak to one when you ring the office.

The opportunity also exists for clients who have been with us for some time and achieved their goals to train as peer mentors and help others achieve their goals.

The mentoring course could be made available to placement providers to equip a member of their staff to support others.

This new one year project has been funded by Learning Together Cheshire and Warrington, through a community grants scheme.

We will be piloting a new way of working with new referrals . The project will enable us to offer our accredited confidence training to new client as soon as they join CHAPTER we will be tailoring the delivery of this course to ensure best fit with the clients needs.

We hope that by undertaking the confidence course at the beginning of the client journey the client will achieve greater success in achieving all their goals.

Whilst the course is still available to all our clients , this grant has provider the finical resources to offer the course much earlier in the client journey, than previously possible and to more people.

We believe that this will also help our clients settle into work/voluntary placements more easily.

The Gardening project continues to be a big success, despite the best efforts of our awful British weather to cause disruption to services at least once a week.

The Gardeners and the service they provide have built a very good reputation, which continues to grow, we get more requests for our gardening service than we could possibly fill.

Not only is this service providing realistic opportunity to gain work skills for our clients it is also providing a valuable lawn cutting and garden maintenance

service for our elderly and disabled customers.

We receive so many thank you cards and praise for our Gardeners work and comments about their polite and caring approach towards our customers , we know that the project it is working on many levels. it so satisfying to know how much the work done by our clients is truly valued but also that two very different groups of society are getting to know and appreciate the needs of one another in a way that is reducing stigma and growing respect.

Of course the additional benefit is that after a period on the Garden project our clients have gained the skills to help them move on to other work placements and achieve even greater success, some have moved onto paid employment.

2008 has been a very busy year on the Youth Project. More of our younger clients than ever have engaged in group work and undertaken accredited courses.

The project is working closely with the clients to identify barriers to progress and finding ways to break down these barriers and help our young adults gain the coping skills they need to move forward in achieving their ambitions.

In addition to all the hard work the clients have put in this year the project has tried to build in a lot of fun.

The young adults have really taken ownership of the project this year and have been very active in both planning and taking part in the organized events and group work. Some of the issues worked on have included developing confidence in using public transport and community recreation facilities, the finale of this course was a group trip to Liverpool capitol of culture using busses trains and the ferry (we couldn’t afford the planes) and once there shopping, museums and a meal in a restaurant!

This work is proving extremely beneficial with four of our younger clients moving into paid employment!