"New RUFF group and Involvement Recovery Links Group"

We are the Rosewood United Feedback Forum (RUFF) formerly known as the Sub service users/carers experience group (sub SUCE) .

As recovery champions our aim as a group is to give real time feedback to the trust to support the recovery strategy. Patient Opinion is very important to us.

We will be evaluating peer support workers by assisting patients with the INSPIRE questionnaire on acute wards. As service users/ carers we hope to inspire others by sharing our personal experiences.

On the 11 May 2012 we held our monthly Involvement Recovery Links Group (IRLG). Our guests were from Wathwood (a medium secure hospital), Arnold lodge (also a medium secure hospital), Tony Mitchell - Learning and Development and Michelle Malone from Adult Mental Health.

The subjects we covered were the trust's olympic walk, Soraya (a service user) pledged to walk 12 miles, and various service users/carers will complete a mile.

We had 3 service users telling their personal stories and Steve (a service user/ recovery champion) did a fantastic job as new chair of this meeting. Phil from Wathwood spoke about the garden party that will be taking place on saturday 16th June to raise money for charities. Other speakers updated news regarding involvement which we all found most interesting here are some of the comments from people that attended the meeting:

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Rosewood recovery links group

The meeting was very positively introduced, with every single participant being made to feel super welcome.

The atmosphere was fantastic, with everybody being celebrated for their attendance and participation.

The meeting included a combination of information being provided and personal experiences being shared and discussed.

This event truly promotes recovery values and principles and is living proof of how or what recovery can look like in real life.

It was impressive that there was a very good mixture of staff/ managers/ carers/ service users and volunteers and everyone contributed - without any hierarchy or obvious 'rank'.

A really really fantastic experience.

Tony Mitchell - Learning and Development.

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The monthly recovery meeting at Rosewood Involvement Centre is a super forum for service users, carers, and staff to get together and share information, successes and stories. I always receive a very warm welcome and I am always inspired by the commitment of all the rosewood volunteers and i always learn something.

Thank you so much and keep up the good work.

Michelle Malone - Adult Mental Health

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This was our first visit to Rosewood Involvement Centre and it was a great experience, my colleague and I were made to feel very welcome by everyone and we enjoyed a fab lunch before the meeting.

Thanks for all the enthusiasm and support for our olympic challenge.

Looking forward to the 14th of June

James and Nigel