Our experienced and qualified Engagement Team will be located on Wilder Street, near the entrance to Brunswick Cemetery Gardens, providing a harm reduction and chill-out area, where anyone is welcome to come find out more about the work we do. Those wanting to escape the noise or heat of the day’s festivities will be able to visit our BDP truck, to have a confidential chat, or our shaded chill-out zone with artificial grass and seating.
As well as offering a range of harm reduction advice, information and resources, we’ll be engaging with carnival-goers by giving out plenty of goody-bags and refreshments. We’ll also have our own photo booth with dressing up box and props, so you can capture all the fun at the carnival.
We look forward to seeing you all there and wish you a safe and fun carnival.
On Thursday 14th June our Engagement team set up a free health event with Places for People at their Stonebridge Park supported housing.
Enticed by the day’s free barbeque and haircuts, the event allowed residents from local supported housing to access a range of health and wellbeing advice and resources – providing support around mental health, physical health, sexual health and problematic alcohol and drug use.
One of our Nurses was on site with our portable fibroscan to allow residents to find out about their liver’s health. Our Engagement staff also provided blood-borne virus testing with a simple finger-prick test.
Elsewhere BDP volunteers offered a range of complementary holistic activities including ear acupuncture and an introduction to Chi Gong. Residents could also pick up free information about other wellbeing opportunities, as well as toiletries for oral hygiene and sexual health resources.
I was really pleased with our first Health and wellbeing day. BDP played a big part in making it all come together I would like say a massive thank you to the team! It was a great day. We had a high number of participated from across all three hostels and the guys really got involved trying all the activities that were on. The haircuts by Cleo from Supertonic Barbers were especially popular! I received a lot of positive feedback form the guys and they have said that they would like to see it happening again so hopefully we can do another one soon.
– Bethan, Places for People
With residents having a history of homelessness, mental health problems and problematic alcohol and drug use, it was great to see people come together from other organisations including St Mungo’s Recovery College and the Salvation Army to support such a valuable day.
We look forward to planning our next Health Event at Stonebridge Park later this year.
Sophie, Choir Founder
We are still buzzing from singing at The Festival of Voice at The Millennium Centre in Cardiff a couple of weeks ago.
We sang on the Festival Hub Stage in the foyer of the beautiful Millennium Centre, and were joined by some amazing theatrical performers from Village Designs. The choir sang beautifully, so beautifully that even Charlotte Church was spotted stopping to listen to us!
Charlotte Church stopped to listen to us.
We also shared some stories on stage of how music has helped our recovery, mental health and wellbeing. We hope the audience was moved by what they heard, and that we spread a little bit of hope and positivity.
Afterwards we went for a meal together and then had free tickets to see another show in the festival that night – an amazing day that will stay in all of our memories for a long time.
The day was made possible by a generous donor to the choir – thank you from all of us!
It’s National Volunteers’ Week – a great opportunity for us to say a big thank you to our fantastic volunteers (past and present) who have been making our work possible.
Taking place every year from 1st – 7th June, Volunteer’s Week is campaign ran by the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, helping to raise awareness of the contribution volunteers make across the UK every single day.
Our new volunteers.
Last week we welcomed our 16 brand-new volunteers into BDP. Having completed their 5 weeks of training (alongside our indispensable new trainees), our new volunteers have now begun working alongside our Engagement Team in our Health & Harm Reduction Centre, gaining front-line experience answering people’s questions and providing access into services.
We are lucky to have such a skilled, experienced, positive, creative bunch join our already brilliant volunteer team.
– Sophie, Volunteer Manager
Our new volunteers bring with them a diverse range of new skills, with backgrounds in academia, research, policy and youth work.
CEO, Maggie Telfer, praised the “fabulous job” of Sophie, our Volunteer Manager, for recruiting such a diverse range of individuals and thanked staff across BDP for supporting the new volunteers:
Thank you for being brilliant role models for our new recruits, making them part of your team on the day with pre-briefs, debriefs and everything in between – to give them a fabulous introduction to BDP.
We catch up with our Festival Team to find out how they spent their weekend spreading harm reduction messages at Love Saves The Day in Eastville Park.
We had a really good time at Love Saves The Day. Our Festival Team had lots of positive engagement all throughout the weekend, talking to the festival-goers and giving out practical harm-reduction advice and resources. We even talked to a few potential new volunteers about how they could get involved in working with us at future festivals.
This year it was great being so close to The Loop, who were helping spread the harm-reduction message with their free drug testing service. Being only a few stalls away from them meant that as soon as they detected especially dangerous pills, we were able to help spread that information in real time, helping to warn festival-goers of any increased risks.
A new music night is helping raise funds and awareness for charities supporting vulnerable people in Bristol.
Launched last Saturday, Music On My Mind is a night of live music featuring respected and emerging artists from Bristol’s music scene. Held at Old Market Assembly, to raise money to BDP and Mind the mental health charity, the launch party featured a DJ set by veterans of the jungle scene, Laid Blak, and the fantastic singer/MC Eva Lazarus.
As well as 50% of their profits going to support the continued work of BDP, we were also invited to provide support in their dedicated ‘chill zone’. Our Engagement Worker Marcus and volunteer Sophie had a great night in the chill zone and praised the organisers for setting up a dedicated safe and relaxed environment for people to ask for advice or information.
A big thanks to organiser, Zenna, for inviting us to take part and their warm welcome on the night. We wish Music On My Mind all the best for the future and hope to be able to take part again.
