Experience Bank

In organising the Peer Support Group we've already tested some things so, if you like a deep dive, this is what we've discovered.

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• topic-focused sessions

• smaller breakout groups

• more whatsapp groups

• social activities

• funding and charitable status

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​Topic-Focused Sessions

We've tried in the past to have guided and themed sessions, but then the discussion fairly rapidly peters out and it becomes a general discussion. Being honest it could have been a lack of in-house skills in this more guided discussion, as we are all volunteers.

 

The attendance for these was significantly less and we have to balance that out against overall demand and availability of the volunteers to run sessions, so the decision was taken to change them into a second general discussion per month.

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In practice, around half of each general session is around subjects that come up almost every time (such as medication, waiting lists, etc) and then the other half tends to be more varied. It's not ideal, but just about works overall.

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Smaller Breakout Groups

In principle we agree! However we've found two challenges:

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If we break out into smaller groups we need to find more hosts to create that same safe space. We don't currently have the number of suitable volunteers, with the ability to commit, to do that.

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There's also the issue of noise. Some of us ADHDers aren't quiet (this author for one!), so there is next-to-no chance of everyone being able to hear in the room, because someone else in a different mini-circle will be speaking in a very loud voice. The reverse is also true, in that some ADHDers speak extremely quietly, and would struggle to be heard. The workaround would involve paying for additional room hire which would at least double the ticket price.
 

So it's a nice idea, but not currently practical.

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More WhatsApp Groups

Within our WhatsApp Community (available to any person who has attended at least one in-person meeting), we have a small number of WhatsApp sub-groups for announcements, general chat, seeking help, decluttering, etc.

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The problem with having more groups is that we haven’t found suitable topics without there being a long list of 20 items which no one then reads. Finding the balance continues to be tricky, but we do monitor for themes and review on a quarterly basis to see if new groups should be created, or descriptions adjusted.

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Probably worth noting that there are occasional busy periods and then it gets quiet again shortly thereafter.

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Social Activities

The idea of running social activities does come up from time to time, but when we've explored this route everyone has different opinions on what to do, how to do it, and what it should cost. With this in mind, we've decided to focus on running our peer support group, as that's what we do best!

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None of this is to stop people organising social activities. As well as the regular pub sessions after peer group sessions, people self-organise social events on our WhatsApp community group, and there are pure-social groups such as GAAPS, within Glasgow, that also aim to meet this need.

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Funding and Charitable Status

We've considered getting external funding, but then it is dependent on funders' whims for every application. It also takes up significant amounts of time to apply for grants. We are all volunteers and our skill is being hosts. Even if we had a volunteer tracking down funding, there would be a single source of failure, whereas currently we have a sustainable model.

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For similar reasons, we've considered applying for charitable status, but our overheads are low and the benefits would be minimal, and that's before we had the tediousness of filling in annual accounts and finding someone to volunteer to sign them off. We want our volunteering to be an enjoyable activity as possible, so we don't feel there is a significant need to go down this route at the present time.

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