The Outer Hebrides Alcohol & Drug Partnership has prepared a list of local and national funders including a link to each site which will be made available on the OHADP website.

The funding list provides an opportunity for individuals/ services to consider applying for funds to develop innovative approaches to recovery.

Health Promotion staff provided inputs to 2nd year Nursing students from Stirling University on 11th April 2019.

Inputs included sessions on the importance of working with patients to change unhealthy behaviour and reduce their risk of ill health. Topics covered included physical activity, healthy eating, smoking, mental health and literacy issues. A variety of presentation and interactive exercises were also used during the day.

Are you ready to walk the length of the Outer Hebrides over six weeks this Spring?

Now is your chance to join in with NHS Western Isles’ successful Step Count Challenge – covering 172 miles with your progress tracked along a virtual route of the Outer Hebrides using the Big Team Challenge App and web-system.

NHS Western Isles Health Improvement Practitioner, Karen Peteranna, said: “Last year’s Step Count Challenge saw over 50,000 miles of steps logged by walkers up and down the Outer Hebrides.

“This was a fantastic effort from walkers who told us they felt the benefits to their health from the additional activity during the Challenge.”

She added: “Walking for just 30 minutes a day can bring benefits to our all round health; our physical, social and mental health.”

The Step Count Challenge is free and open to island residents aged 13 years and over; and last year the Challenge attracted 300 people from across the islands, with participants stating they found the Challenge helped them reach individual goals, such as taking the time to walk daily, increasing activity following an operation, and losing weight. Many said they had fun while getting out and about rediscovering their local community! Continue reading →

One of the hallmarks of the Outer Hebrides approach has been to work on community level prevention approaches alongside statutory service developments. In order to reduce suicide rates, population-based strategies aimed at actively reducing risks among the whole population are considered to have greater impact than clinical strategies targeting those thought to be at high risk of suicide. Although there are a number of predictive factors, such as self-harm, these are common to many people. Since suicide results from a complex interplay of biological, socio-cultural, psychological, and behavioural factors, working to prevent it at a population level is more effective.

Our Local Responses to Suicide

Training

Scotland’s Suicide Prevention Action Plan ‘Every Life Matters’ sets out specific actions to reduce suicide in Scotland. Additionally, Scotland’s Mental Health Strategy includes several commitments to improve mental health in areas related to this framework. Alongside this, Scotland’s Public Health Priorities sets out the priority ‘A Scotland where we all have good mental wellbeing’. The Mental Health Strategy and Suicide Prevention Action Plan highlight the importance of developing knowledge and skills in mental health and suicide prevention across all public services and beyond.

By training a proportion of the population, more skilled and confident helpers are available to explore thoughts of suicide and intervene. The training programme offers suicide prevention training covering awareness and exploration to suicide first aid skills. Courses are organised and delivered at a local level by qualified trainers. Courses range from a 1 hour Suicidetalk, and a 3 hour Safetalk training to the full two-day ASIST training.

As part of this year’s No Smoking Day, the ‘Quit Your Way Hebrides’ team (formerly known as Smokefree Hebrides) asked islanders to #TellUsYourWay of how they stopped smoking! No Smoking Day is the national day celebrating the success of people who have stopped smoking, and encourages those still smoking to try and try again, and give up for good.

As well as a series of displays and activities promoting No Smoking Day, the ‘Quit Your Way Hebrides’ team’s main focus was to highlight the success of some of their local clients who had successfully quit smoking and wanted to share their stories with other smokers, in the hope of encouraging them to try quitting too.

To highlight their success, a number of posters were developed featuring personal straplines from each successful quitter as featured below.

Joanne O’Donnell, NHSWI Smoking Cessation Coordinator, said “How you quit smoking is your choice, and different ways work for different people. It’s all about finding what works best for you to help you quit for good. After a few days you’ll start to notice the changes, and there is a lot of help and support around for you from our specialist team across the Western Isles.”

“We signed up to support No Smoking Day because we wanted to hear from people living and working in the Outer Hebrides, about how they stopped smoking, and to use those examples to encourage others who want to quit or who have tried before to give it up on No Smoking Day. The photographs alongside are some of our successful quitters from across the Islands. Each of our quitters has a different but very motivating story to tell.”

Sheila Duffy, Chief Executive of ASH Scotland, supports No Smoking Day and said “Some people just decide to quit and manage it straight off – and can be surprised to find it was easier than they thought. For others it can take a number of attempts to succeed, but each time they learn something about themselves and what helps or gets in the way. There’s free, expert advice from your pharmacy or Quit Your Way Scotland and you can get prescriptions for help if you need them. Just have a think, and talk to people, and pick your way to quit.”

NHS stop-smoking services in the Outer Hebrides don’t just support No Smoking Day, they work all year round and if you want to quit, would be delighted to offer you their support.

For expert advice and help on how to quit smoking, however you want it, please contact ‘Quit Your Way Hebrides’ by telephoning (01851) 701623 or emailing hebrides.quityourway@nhs.net  

A one day course ’Drugs and Mental Health’ was funded by the Outer Hebrides Alcohol & Drug Partnership and delivered by the Scottish Drugs Forum in March to Lewis/Harris and Uist/Barra.

The course gave an introduction to the effects that drugs can have on mental health, how to recognise and respond. The training will allow health workers, youth workers, drug workers and other professionals to effectively respond to, treat and engage people with mental health problems.

When quitting smoking, everyone is different. Find out what could work for you by calling your local Quit Your Way Hebrides team on 01851 701623 or email: hebrides.quityourway@nhs.net #NoSmokingDay #TellUsYourWay Quit Your Way. #NoSmokingDay #TellUsYourWay Quit Your Way #NHSWI

Health Promotion’s Health Improvement Practitioner, Karen Peteranna, attended Back Football & Recreation Club’s now infamous annual International Women’s Day event on Saturday 9th March.

Karen provided information on a range of health topics such as the benefits of walking to all-round health, tick and lyme disease, detecting cancer early, low-risk drinking guidelines and the menopause.

Fancy a glass of wine after work tonight? If you drink most evenings, it can add up. Sticking to a maximum of 14 units – that’s 6 glasses of wine a week – can reduce the risk of developing health issues #Count14Units

A one day course ’Older and Wiser’ was organised by the Outer Hebrides Alcohol & Drug Partnership and delivered by the Scottish Drugs Forum in February to Lewis/Harris and Uist/Barra.

The course explored the health needs of an ageing cohort who use alcohol and drugs and look at the reasons why older individuals tend not to engage with mainstream services, explore where else in the system the workforce can engage with an ageing cohort and discuss strategies that have been piloted in Scotland.

Do you like walking?  Do you have some spare time? …1 hour a week / fortnight.  Would you like to be part of a new walking group leading walks in your local area?

NHS Western Isles’ Health Promotion department will be providing a free Walk Leader training course at Old Carloway School on Tuesday 19th and 26th March, 6pm-8.30pm. Both sessions should be attended to complete the training.

The training aims to provide people with the skills and confidence to lead walks in their local area.

Ongoing support and resources will be provided to trained Walk Leaders following the training.

For more information or to register contact Karen Peteranna, Walk Leader Trainer, tel. 01851 762015 or email: karen.peteranna@nhs.net

NHS Health Scotland have recently published new resources to help develop and improve financial inclusion referral pathways between health and money and welfare services. 

This includes what financial inclusion referral pathways are; how they can help to address child poverty; and key features of, and steps involved in, developing or improving pathways. 

The guidance includes 3 new films describing examples of pathways between money and welfare advice services within Maternity and Health Visiting services, GP services and Acute Care services.  For further information click here.

If you have more than a stone to lose, then ‘Healthy Weighs’ is the programme for you – and for the first time, residents across the Western Isles chain can access Healthy Weighs with NHSWI Healthy Weight Practitioners Monica MacLeod in place to cover Uists and Barra and Laura MacLeod in Lewis and Harris.

Monica and Laura will be delivering ‘Healthy Weighs’ registration sessions, open to anyone interested, in various community locations across the islands.  These will be followed by monthly meetings through which participants have the opportunity to ask questions and hear tips towards achieving a healthier weight, as well as having their weight taken.  Participants also receive a starter pack, weekly motivational texts with the option to text their weekly weight, and access to electronic resources such as fact-sheets and video clips. Continue reading →

Welcome to our quarterly snapshot of work that Health Promotion staff are involved in. Visit at: https://bit.ly/2D8aycB 

Safer Internet Day is celebrated in February each year in over a hundred countries.

Coordinated in the UK by the UK Safer Internet Centre, the purpose is to promote the safe and positive use of digital technology for children and young people and to inspire a national conversation.

The Outer Hebrides Alcohol & Drug Partnership funded and recently organised a one-day course ‘Alcohol Related Brain Damage’ which was delivered by Scottish Drugs Forum in Uist on 29th January and Stornoway on 30th January 2018.

The aim of the course was to support practitioners to be able to respond effectively to children affected by this issue.

The Outer Hebrides Alcohol & Drug Partnership Support team have had several meetings to review service provision in Outer Hebrides.

This work included setting objectives and indicators, following publication of the new Scottish Government Strategy ‘Rights, Respect and Recovery’ as well as undertaking SWOT analysis from returned monitoring forms and databases. This was followed by a visit to all our funded services.

The Outer Hebrides Alcohol & Drug Partnership Co-ordinator and Development Officer attended a 2-day ‘Train the Trainer’ course in January 2019.

The aim of the course was to develop competence and confidence in the design, development, delivery and evaluation of training related to improving health. The skills gained from this course will be transferred to all future inputs and training.

The next Daliburgh Health Walk will take place tomorrow, Friday 1st February at 11.30am, meeting at The Borrodale Hotel.

Everyone welcome. All abilities. No booking required, so why not come along and give it a try.