The “All About Me – Deaf Recovery Package”, a project that Cygnet Hospital Bury’s deaf services were involved in collaboration with other national deaf services, was the winner in the Outstanding Service User Achievement category. In addition Cygnet Hospital Bierley’s “Big Blue Music Festival” was voted the Service User Choice Award Winner in a live vote on the day.
The fourth annual National Service User Awards, sponsored by Cygnet Health Care, took place on Wednesday 27th April at Silverstone race course. The event was compered by two service users from Cygnet Hospital Derby, who invited David Cole, CEO of Cygnet Health Care to give the opening address.
The event was attended by over 150 service users and staff from NHS and independent mental health providers from all over the country. The Awards are designed to recognise the achievements of service users in inpatient mental health services and to celebrate the many wonderful service user led initiatives that are implemented nationwide.
The “All About Me Deaf Recovery Package” brought together deaf service users from several providers nationally, who along with staff support worked to create a package of recovery tools that were more accessible for those whose first language is BSL rather than English. This included a BSL film and work book along with new user-friendly form templates.
Several service users involved in the project attended the ceremony and gave a powerful presentation on what being involved in this project had meant to them. All the team involved were delighted to have been crowned the Outstanding Service User Achievement Award winners 2016!
This year’s awards saw the return of the live vote for the Service User Choice Award, and Cygnet Hospital Bierley were delighted to be voted this year’s winners for the “Big Blue Music Festival”. The music festival was organised by service users, for service users and encouraged involvement from across the hospital to showcase talents in music, art comedy or spoken word, all while raising money for charity. They faced some stiff competition in the final but after a moving poem from a service user from Cygnet Hospital Bierley as part of their presentation, the Festival was voted your Service User Choice Award Winner 2016.
Cygnet Hospitals Wyke and Derby also had nominations in the final so we’d like to say a big well done to them and congratulations to all the other winners and finalists on their fantastic achievements. For full details of all the winners please visit the National Service User Awards website.