Newsletter - Powys - January 2024

Powys

Newsletter

January 2024

Read more about the Christmas Toy Market on page 4

I have now been in post as Chief Executive for six months and I am deeply grateful for the warmth and welcome.

What’s inside

Since I have been at Mirus, I have loved learning about the organisation and I have really enjoyed meeting people at our Mirus Stars and Better Together events. Better Together is really important to Mirus because we have been reviewing the work that we do, and your feedback and insights as part of the Better Together process have been invaluable in shaping what Mirus will focus on in the future.

We want to increase our collaboration next year too.

Better Together updates

02

Choosing your staff

03

Preparing for work

03

Community activities

04

Voice, Choice and Control

05

I know that lots of us have enjoyed parties and celebrations during the holiday season, and on behalf of Mirus I want to wish you all a very happy new year!

Our Health & Wellbeing event

06

Changes to our structure

08

Meet your Responsible Individual

08

Mirus Stars Awards

09

Kirsty Davies-Warner Chief Executive

www.mirus-wales.org.uk

1

Updates from your area The Better Together process for people supported and their support circles:

What is Better Together?

Updates from your area

Better Together is our process of gathering information to make sure that we at Mirus can focus on improving the things that are most important to people.

Our Better Together event was held in September, and at the event we talked about some of the things you told us were important to you.

Each year we gather information from everyone involved in Mirus. The people we support, their families and circles of support, our staff, our volunteers and Local Authorities who commission our services.

You said:

We want everyone to have a say so that we can learn about all of the things people enjoy, want, and need.

We gather this information from people in many different ways throughout the year. Once we have gathered the information, we sort it into groups of similar things which we call themes, and from these themes we make a plan of what we at Mirus will work on.

We called this plan our ‘Path’ and we have a separate Path for each region we work in, as well as one for Mirus overall.

2

People want to choose their own staff.

People want more opportunities to work and volunteer.

People want to be more involved with their communities.

People want to have voice, choice and control.

People want to have good wellbeing.

The stories on the following pages will show you some of the ways we have been working towards achieving those aims.

Choosing your own staff You said, we did

Watch our video bit.ly/mirusinterviewing

You told us that you wanted to be more involved with recruitment and choosing your own staff at Mirus.

We looked at how we recruit staff, and came up with lots of different ways that people could be involved, if they wanted to be.

Working together with people supported, their families, staff across Mirus and people from other similar organisations, we came up with a plan that helps people make decisions about the support they receive, and who they receive it from.

Preparing for work

There are lots of ways for people to be involved in recruitment, including:

We are making links with other organisations who can help people find opportunities.

• • • • • • • • • •

making a video that talks about their likes, dislikes and interests writing their own advert joining the interview panel meeting the candidates for a coffee filming a pre-recorded question for candidates to answer helping to write interview questions having a video or phone call with the candidates attending recruitment fairs and open days giving feedback on the answers candidates give telling a successful candidate that they’ve got the job

We don’t just follow this process for our support worker roles, we like to have input from people we support in our central roles too! This helps us to ensure that everyone who works at Mirus, regardless of which department they’re in, has the right values.

You told us that you wanted to be supported to find work and volunteering positions.

Kylie and Tina who are supported by Mirus in Brecon have been visited at home by Powys Employment Officer, Hannah to discuss the barriers they face with finding employment.

After the meeting they both attended a job session with Dawn Bowen, the Disability Employment Officer in Brecon to talk about their aspirations and the barriers to achieving them.

Both Tina and Kylie shared their personal journeys of volunteering and education. Since the meeting, Tina has been contacted about a Volunteering Support role with MIND, and is really excited to start in the next few months.

They have also been invited to star in a video to promote how other people can prepare for employment.

3

Community activities You said, we did You told us you wanted to be more involved in your community. We found and created more opportunities and activities for people to join.

Our Community Development and Volunteering Lead, Jade Flynn has worked with organisations in Ystradgynlais to bring Christmas spirit to the community for the second year running.

Jade said:

“Last year’s free Christmas toy market was so successful, and helped so many people who were struggling with the cost of living that we knew we had to do it again!”

Jade put a call out to Mirus staff members and her friends and family, asking them to donate any toys, children’s clothes and baby items they no longer needed.

“The response was unbelievable, so many people wanted to help – even local businesses donated this year, and helped us make the event really special”.

Mirus Locality Manager Helen along with other staff members and Berian, who is supported by Mirus worked together to collect the donations, and helped Ystradgynlais Community Centre workers Emma and Bri to set up the toy market.

“There were so many toys and clothes that we couldn’t fit them all on display, we had to replenish the stock multiple times.”

The toy market at the Community Centre opened its doors at 10am on 6th December, and stayed open until 8pm because the stream of grateful parents didn’t stop!

4

Each person who visited could select as many presents, clothes and baby items as they needed

Berian having lunch at the Toy Market

for free, along with a selection box and tickets to see The Polar Express at The Welfare.

Berian sold raffle tickets for a family ticket to see the pantomime Snow White and raised £55 to go towards funding the Community Centre’s ‘warm space’ that will open in January.

The people who attended the toy market were extremely grateful. One person told us that she had been saving hard all year to pay for their family Christmas presents. Unfortunately, a couple of weeks before Christmas her washing machine broke and leaked. She had to use all of her Christmas savings to replace the washing machine and the water damaged floor. She was so thankful when she saw the Facebook advert for the Toy Market.

Another young mother who had just come out of a refuge told Jade she “never thought she would have to rely on a free Toy Market to provide for her baby”, but was “so glad that the resource was there” when she needed it most.

Berian loved chatting to the visitors while he helped them pack their items, and enjoyed stories of how happy the children would be on Christmas morning when they opened their presents.

Jade said:

“The amount of people who attended just shows how widespread the cost of living crisis is. Mirus were so thrilled to be able to help out people in the communities that we work in, and we look forward to continuing to offer support in the future.”

Voice, choice and control You said, we did A popular theme to come out of our Better Together process was advocacy and feedback.

You told us that you wanted a designated person supported in each area who you could talk to and who would give feedback to Mirus on your behalf. Because of this, we now have a local representative in almost all areas that we work in.

What are Mirus Reps?

Mirus Reps are volunteers who are supported

by Mirus. They are the voice of people supported by Mirus in their area. Their role is to provide feedback and opinions from other people we support to the local Area Manager and Registered Individual. They will also provide feedback and opinions to external organisations that Mirus work with.

Their goal is to make things better for people supported by Mirus, and help to make sure that people can do the things they love.

Each Mirus Rep needs great support from someone who understands what their role is – and each Rep and their support received training to learn new skills to be even better.

Training for our Reps The first time all the Reps and supporters came together in March at Court Colman.

They agreed the role of the Reps and discussed what why they thought it was so important.

Your Mirus Reps Name: Craig Jones Area: Ystradgynlais

Name: Beth Broad Area: Brecon

Watch our video: bit.ly/mirusrepsvideo They spoke about the fact that Mirus has policies. A policy is a set of rules about how we do things in Mirus. The Reps agreed that they wanted to have a say about what goes into the policies that are about the people we support and their rights.

The next time the group met together was to have training about ‘Speaking Out’, which was delivered by All Wales People First.

The supporters also received training, this time from Joe Powell the Chief Executive of All Wales People First. This training was all about how they can best support the Reps and was called “Shine without Shining”.

Reps Alex and Adam have already presented at the Welsh Government’s Learning Disability: Talk To Us event in Llandudno, Carmarthenshire and Cardiff.

Alex and Adam talked about our Better Together process, and the importance of recruiting their own staff. You can watch some of their presentation on YouTube: bit.ly/mirusrepsgov

5

Health and Wellbeing You said, we did You told us that you wanted more information and support with their health and wellbeing, so, in September, we organised a Health and Wellbeing Festival at Margam Park.

The Health & Wellbeing Festival, which was funded by the National Lottery Community Fund, was attended by lots of organisations from across Wales who joined us to share accessible information in an interactive way.

At the festival, people could visit exhibition stands to get advice and support about improving their health and wellbeing, as well as join in with lots of fun interactive activities throughout the day.

6

Sharing feedback We took the feedback that we received at the Health and Wellbeing Festival to the Learning Disability Wales Conference.

At the conference we showed people the video that we made of our event, and asked them: What do you think is the most important area that the Welsh Government should focus on?

An overwhelming majority agreed that Mental Health and Wellbeing should be the main focus.

Watch our video

bit.ly/miruswellbeingfestival

Have your say...

Now is the time to have your say about what Mirus should focus on in the future by filling in our survey.

We want you to tell us: • What is going well for you • What isn’t going so well for you If you are supported by Mirus, your survey will be available from your house Manager.

If you are a family member of someone supported by Mirus, your survey will be delivered to your home address.

Please complete and return your survey

by January 31st.

7

We’ve made some Changes to our structure Services structure Director of Services Assistant Head of Service and Responsible Individual Cardiff Area Manager Cardiff & Vale (3)

Assistant Head of Service and Responsible Individual Gwent & Powys

Respite Manager

Area Manager Gwent & Powys

Assistant Head of Service and Responsible Individual Bridgend, NPT & Swansea Area Manager Bridgend & NPT

Area Manager Swansea

Assistant Area Manager Swansea

People in your area Responsible Individual Name: Sally Bathurst Email: SallyBa@mirus-wales.org.uk Sally says: “Having been in management roles In social care for over 15 years in Ceredigion, its great to get out and about more to other regions and see the wonderful work they are doing.

8

I am really looking forward to getting to meet more of the people supported, staff and families in the services in Powys. The management team have been making some great progress and its lovely to see how well they all work together. We are really pleased to now have a full leadership team in the region and to be able to focus on moving forward.

I especially can’t wait to hear more about how the Toy Market goes in Ystrad! “

Area Manager Name: Vickie Woodland Email: VickieW@mirus-wales.org.uk

Celebrating achievements On 23rd November, we held our Mirus Stars Awards event at Brangwyn Hall in Swansea.

At the event, we celebrated our fabulous award winners, who had each gone through a tough nomination and selection process.

Throughout the year, everyone nominated the people who they thought had done something extraordinary, in line with our values; Together, Respectful, Responsible, Empowering and Courageous.

This year we received an incredible 151 powerful nominations.

Then, at our Mirus pre-awards parties in Cardiff and Swansea, our audience members voted for the people who they thought most deserved to go through to the next round as finalists.

Each of our 21 finalists were incredible, and our Board of Trustees had a very difficult time selecting only five winners.

Mirus Stars winners 2023 Julie Devereux - Brecon Claire Roberts - Bridgend Franco Armitti - Cardiff Mark Griffiths - Cardiff

Powys Winner Julie Devereux

Reason for being nominated:

“Julie is passionate about others being happy and together. She never leaves anyone behind, and does things for others to make them feel included. She always makes sure that everyone feels welcome in her home.

When going on an outing Julie always makes sure people have a fun adventure. The people she chats to always leave the conversation with a massive smile on their faces.

Julie knits teddy bears to gift to staff, friends and to charity. She sews the name of the person being gifted the teddy onto its chest, and everybody loves receiving them.”

Nominate your 2024 Stars!

Nominations are now open for the Mirus Stars Awards 2024.

You can nominate a person supported by Mirus or a Mirus staff member by filling out the form at the link below.

www.bit.ly/mirusmoments

Wendy Jones - Neath Port Talbot 9