Listen Up - Social Welfare Portal

listenup!88 | Case Study 1Case Study 1:Sorted Not Screwed Up,Aberdeen Foyer, AberdeenMission statement“All young people need a home, support and aspringboard into independent living, learning andwork. Some don’t have it. Aberdeen Foyer helps fillthe gap.”Overview of the serviceAberdeen Foyer is a registered charity whichsupports vulnerable young people. It provides arange of services that aim to give a young person aperiod of stability during which they can learn to livesuccessful, independent lives.Aberdeen Foyer evolved out of a city centre youthproject for disadvantaged young people, and it becamea registered charity in 1995. In 2001, funding wassourced from the Diana Princess of Wales MemorialFund to set up a mental health and wellbeing initiativefor the young people accessing Aberdeen Foyer. Thefirst two years of the project were guided by a steeringgroup comprising young people and representativesfrom the statutory services including housing services,the NHS and social services. In 2002, this initiative wasnamed, by the young people themselves, Sorted NotScrewed Up (SNSU).The emphasis of SNSU is on providing youngperson-friendly, holistic, readily-accessibleservices to prevent a young person’s mentalhealth difficulties from worsening. It supports thetransition to independent living by helping youngpeople develop life skills, improving their mentalhealth, tackling stigma and discrimination andworking towards reducing suicide risk and self-harmthrough a mixture of short-term interventions andlonger-term work such as counselling.From April 2004, following three years of funding fromthe Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Fund, the projectreceived its core funding the Scottish Executive’ssuicide prevention strategy. This encouraged a greaterfocus on targeting young people in crisis, in particularreducing rates of suicide and self-harm.Service development work carried out as part ofthe Mental Health Foundation projectThe main focus of SNSU service development hasbeen the increase of access to complementarytherapies for young people experiencing mentalhealth difficulties. A regular shiatsu massage servicehas been offered to the different Foyer sites inAberdeen City and Aberdeenshire. Rotating where themassage is provided has meant access to the service isas equal as possible. Other therapies and activities thathave been offered include Reiki, Indian head massageand African drumming. All the therapists involvedwere suitably qualified in their profession.Providing these complementary services isimportant, as it offers the young person choice; ifthey do not wish to engage with more traditionalforms of assistance such as counselling, they canstill use the service, opting for something that theybelieve will help them. Having complementarytherapy options is also one way to help a youngperson to engage with the service and build trust.Initially, it had been planned to use part of themoney from the Mental Health Foundation todevelop a website, but the complementary therapieswere so popular that it was decided to use theremaining funding to continue providing these.Service catchment areaAberdeen Foyer has supported housing andeducation and training sites in Aberdeen Cityand parts of Aberdeenshire including Peterhead,Fraserburgh, Stonehaven, Banchory and Banff. Dueto the geographical spread, SNSU staff are unable totimetable a full mental health programme at everysite. Recently, SNSU has targeted the supportedhousing sites for young people, and certain FoyerLearning sites that offer education and training.