Updated 21 December 2020
Scottish Drugs Forum is to deliver sessions of mindfulness practice and creative writing to support workers.
David Liddell CEO of SDF explains “The aim is to support staff working in frontline organisations who are dealing with the very real challenges of service delivery in the pandemic and the circumstances in which services are now delivered. Our stakeholders have raised the issue of the strain staff are under and this is just one way in which people are finding support. SDF is carrying out broader work to identify and help services prevent and address staff stress and burn out. As well as the personal cost there is an impact on service delivery and the vulnerable people services work with.”
Sessions will be co-hosted by SDFs Adrienne Hannah. “The sessions offer a personal experience of mindfulness and an exploration of the use of mindful and creative writing to articulate observations and learning. The sessions are experiential.”
Co-host, Bev Schofield from Lapidus Scotland is a creative writing facilitator and will lead on the creative writing element. The writing practice in these sessions has evolved out of creative writing for health and wellbeing projects. Bev explains “The therapeutic value of writing as we plan to present it has no attachment to literary expectation; you do not need to write poetry or publishable prose. Indeed, you may even choose not to share anything you write during these sessions. Our encouragement is, quite simply, to explore the use of writing to clear confusion and stress by opening the door to creativity.”
Online sessions will run from 10am-12pm on Mondays 11th, 18th, 25th January and 1st February.
Each session is a stand-alone event and participants are free to attend as many or as few as they want. The sessions are free and there is no limit to the number of participants.
The sessions started in November and you can read more about past workshops and access resources by checking out Bev and Adrienne’s blog. These practices can be done on your own, or with people you support.
Many people who have been doing Adrienne’s mindfulness and Bev’s creative writing have declared they helped with the difficulties of the pandemic of 2020.
Participants must register to join a session, you can complete the registration form by clicking here.
To find out more please contact Adrienne at Enquiries@sdf.org.uk.
