Recovery and Wellbeing Lead Faye Sunter shares a blog she wrote after the first few months of her role following a team away day with staff within our North Yorkshire Horizons Aftercare Team.
I was invited to attend a Team Away Day with North Yorkshire Horizons, and the trip really made me reflect on the benefits of face to face meetings! Being fairly new in my role as Recovery Lead, I was yet to meet many of the staff within the team but I was warmly welcomed by a lovely and creative team. The energy you gain from sitting in a room with a number of people just can’t always be matched online and although the benefits of Teams are endless and have brought so many people closer together over the past few years (as well as making my own job a lot easier at times!) I found the day out to be a huge benefit and gave me time to reflect.
Our team of staff who work across North Yorkshire Horizons make up the Aftercare Team within a wider partnership and are based across five separate hubs ranging from Scarborough, Selby, Skipton, Harrogate and Northallerton (which is a much bigger geographical patch than I had originally anticipated)! The team enjoyed a rare opportunity to all come together in York and celebrate some of the fantastic work which is taking place across the team.
The day followed a planned agenda, and was led by Service Manager, Steve Flood who encouraged good practice to be shared across the hubs. The staff shared some of their achievements over recent months including up to 30 attendees at some of the community groups and growth into new areas such as Whitby. We also watched a fantastic video clip created by Kevin Rafferty (Aftercare Team) about the benefits of the service and in particular the walking groups.
Team Leader, Graham Lai-Wood shared some data achievements and the team celebrated smashing one of their KPI’s for the first time with 27% (vs. a target of 20%) of the overall treatment population in North Yorkshire being offered support from a peer mentor!
Graham also gave the team some ‘Affirmation Jars’ which had been a family effort to pull together! The jars were full of positive messages written by the team for each other as well as small treats and over 100 handmade origami stars! The day ended with a joint lunch and felt like a really uplifting way to start my week. My diary has continued to fill up since my trip out last week but it made me reflect on the importance of sometimes pausing and coming together to share experiences and learn from each other and gain some positive energy from others.
Find out more about our role in the North Yorkshire Horizons partnership.
