Dads
Mayfield's Dads group has had yet another successful year with 7 attending on a regular basis. Gillian Hunter, Centre Co-ordinator offered a varied programme of activities which included stained glass painting, picture frames, cooking/baking (spaghetti, Bolognese, soups, mince) to name but a few. This resulted in the school commenting that "We would have to share it with them as the smell was going through all the school".
Ali Birrell helped the men make presents for their partner consisting of jewellery and even made the wrapping paper. Karen Hooton held relaxation classes and Kevin Robertson Psychotherapist held an Anger Management course. We had day trips to Vogrie country park, Deep Sea World, Eastlinks Farm and Butterfly World the children and dad's had a great time. The dads went to Mega Bowl as their Christmas day out.
During the course of the year our Parenting Skills Co-ordinator Jennie Jacobs helped 2 dad's join the Mayfield group from the Penicuik and Loanhead area. She brought these parents/children along to the weekly sessions and on a few of our outings.
As a result of demand by dads, we decided to start up another group in the Penicuik area. This has had a very successful start with 9 dads registering an interest in joining. 6 fathers have been attending regularly. Kevin Robertson, a psychotherapist has facilitated the start of this group. He has also started a therapeutic programme, "Realising your dreams and releasing your potential". In this course, clients start to think about and share what they want to do with their lives in the future. The aim is to support the men to move toward taking positive action in their lives and in the process, highlight or identify the areas in which they feel that they need more support to make the necessary changes, or to take the requisite action, whether that it is:
- A training course
- Renegotiation with a significant other of priorities and boundaries between them
- Learning to deal more effectively with anger issues and the more effective management of emotions, in a general sense
- Being supported to trust their feelings and intuition in choosing their next steps.
- Choosing a new career direction
- The men have been planning the future direction of the group. This will include looking at ways in which to attract more men, the continuation of the realising your dreams and releasing your potential course, relaxation sessions, MALANI story sacks and an exchange visit with Ruchazie centre in Glasgow.
All group members are asked to complete evaluation forms to comment on how they experienced this service. To date all comments have been very positive with the following comments made:
"If it was'nae for this group and you Kev, I'd be deid" [Service user in Mayfield]
"For the first time in ages I feel great, am away tonight down... today was great." [Service user in Mayfield]
"This group is fantastic, it's exactly what I've needed for a couple of years" [Service user in Penicuik]
“It's good to be with other men, led by a man talking about what matters to us" [Service user in Mayfield]