More Cashback for Communities

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A £17 million fund to help some of the country’s most disadvantaged young people is now open. The cash, seized from criminals, has been committed to the next phase of CashBack funding and will be used to provide activities and opportunities across Scotland. Continue reading More Cashback for Communities

Inverleith Neighbourhood Partnership to meet on 6 June

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The next meeting of Inverleith Neighbourhood Partnership will be held on Monday 6 June at 6.30pm at Drylaw Neighbourhood Centre. Continue reading Inverleith Neighbourhood Partnership to meet on 6 June

HELP! An appeal from Craigroyston

Craigroyston Community High School to lose adult education classes?

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My name is Vanessa Cousins, Chairperson of Craigroyston Community Centre. I wish to draw your attention to the fact that we are LOSING our Community Centre and Day Time Adult Education Classes.

WE NEED YOUR HELP.

  • We have asked to be updated and informed by the Head Teacher, Steve Ross in a written request in February 2016 of any changes and received NO reply.
  • We have contacted Councillors Cammie Day, Vicki Redpath, Steve Downie and Allan Jackson to invite them to a meeting and have received NO reply.
  • We have emailed David Bruce (senior education official). No reply.

Steve Ross, has made it clear that we will not be able to run any daytime adult education classes in the Craigroyston Community High School from August 2016 as the school will be using all of the community rooms for pupil classes, during curriculum time.

He had a group from Council Asset Management inspect the school and they confirmed the community wing classrooms to be for pupil use only from August 2016. It is not clear if they were made aware of the regular community use.

We wish to meet with the Council Community Asset Management team. If the decisions are not made by Steve Ross then we need to know who does and be allowed to meet them to put our case forward.

We need to be advertising courses very shortly so we need clear information and confirmation that our community centre rooms will be available from August.

Info Points

  • The head teacher suggested that the increased school roll, possibly going up to around 480 pupils (although the school was designed for a school roll of 600 pupils), necessitated use of the community rooms to offer two Social Science classes and the third classroom to be used by a new development teacher for the school.
  • There seems no recognition of the loss of this as being a vital community asset, especially as the three rooms are all that remains of the original Craigroyston Community Centre, guaranteed by the council at the time (2009), to provide community centre equivalent in the school building.
  • Craigroyston Community Centre was established in the 1970s to serve the community in North Edinburgh and was demolished when the centre was amalgamated with the new Community High School
  • The three community rooms, specially built to provide access for local people, are usually constantly busy with daytime adult education classes and community groups – with a newly formed community centre management group, made up of adult learners, developing more ideas and classes in response to community needs.
  • At the moment the rooms are taken up with providing classroom space for the additional 250 Craigroyston Primary School pupils who have been accommodated in the high school, along with teaching and admin staff, and admin staff from Pirniehall Primary school which is supported by the Committee.

‘Empowering communities is key to creating a more prosperous and fairer Scotland. It is the role of central and local government to work in partnership with communities and support them to lead change for themselves, to create thriving and sustainable places to live.’ 

(First sentence of the Community Empowerment Act (Scotland ) 2015 Asset Transfer section)

Vanessa Cousins

Hampden pitch invasion: Furious Rangers call for independent investigation

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Investigations into the aftermath of Hibs Scottish Cup victory at Hampden on Saturday are ongoing and police are appealing for the support of spectators to help their inquiries. Continue reading Hampden pitch invasion: Furious Rangers call for independent investigation

Mental health an ‘absolute priority’ for Scottish Government

Minister speaks about the importance of new role

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Commenting on her new role as Mental Health Minister at the end of Mental Health Awareness Week, Maureen Watt said:

“I am extremely proud to be appointed as Scotland’s first dedicated Mental Health Minister, and the first in the UK. Starting my new position during Mental Health Awareness Week makes it particularly special for me – a reminder of what an important role it is.

“Mental Health is an absolute priority of this government, demonstrated by the fact that we have committed an additional £150 million to improve mental health services. Some of that has already been invested in innovation; improving access to child and adolescent mental health services and psychological therapies; and primary care. I look forward to announcing more details of how the remainder will be spent in the coming weeks and months. Later this year we will be publishing a ten year strategy to improve mental health and services – I see this as the centrepiece of this Government’s focus on improving Mental Health.

“We are currently working on the development of the next Strategy, and over the last few months we have engaged with a wide range of stakeholders including people who use services, service providers and professional bodies. The Scottish Association for Mental Health and Voices of Experience also hosted engagement events and the Strategy will be informed by all of the comments and input that we have received.

“I want us to focus more on prevention and early intervention. By addressing mental health problems as early as possible, we can prevent people from becoming more distressed, and improve access to services when needed by reducing pressure on the NHS.

“We need to think about new and innovative ways to improve mental health. That means looking for approaches that go beyond traditional health settings. It will also mean taking advantage of the well-known links between physical health and mental wellbeing. If we can get people more active, the benefits are enormous. We want to tackle the 15-20 year difference in life expectancy for people living with serious mental illness.

“Around 90 per cent of mental health problems are dealt with in primary care settings, so this will be a priority area for us. Part of the £150 million will be used to fund new ways of responding to these issues in and around GP surgeries.

“In recent years we’ve seen a significant increase in the number of people accessing mental health services. If that means more people are prepared to ask for help rather than suffer in silence, that should be welcomed. NHS boards are seeing more people than ever before, but I’m clear that more work needs to be done to meet the waiting time standards we have set.

“Finally I want to say something about the stigma which still exists around mental health. It is completely wrong that people with mental health issues suffer discrimination and stigma. Sadly too many still do.

“The Scottish Government, in collaboration with Comic Relief, funds the See Me initiative to help address this, and they do valuable work. But the truth is that each and every one of us has it within our power to do our bit to end this stigma, and to be more understanding of people who have mental health problems.”

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MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS WEEK STATEMENT

This Mental Health Awareness Week See Me we are calling on everyone to start talking more about mental health and to be there for each other.

Mental health is part of everyone’s day to day life, it affects all of us, but there is still a stigma around it.

To tackle this properly people need to understand that it is okay not to be okay, however it is not okay for anyone to suffer alone in silence.

You don’t have to be an expert to speak about mental health, just asking someone if they are okay can be a powerful thing.

We need to change the culture around mental health so people with mental health problems to feel confident enough to talk, without the fear that they will be stigmatised and discriminated against.

No one should ever be made to feel ashamed or embarrassed to tell anyone that they experience mental health problems.

For move information visit

https://www.seemescotland.org/

Forth Neighbourhood Partnership meets on Wednesday

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Forth Neighbourhood Partnership meets on Wednesday 25 May at 7pm in the North Local Office on West Pilton Gardens. Continue reading Forth Neighbourhood Partnership meets on Wednesday