Self Management isn’t just for Self Management Week…

Although we focus our events and awareness raising activity around one particular week in the year, self management is a year-round focus.

So, Self Management Week 2023 is over, right?  Well, yes and no.  Although we focus our events and awareness raising activity around one particular week in the year, self management is a year-round focus, both for us as a team and for the people and organisations we work with.  We like to say that “everyone has a self management story”, whether for one long term condition, many or none.  We all do things to keep ourselves well, day in, day out, and so Self Management Week may be behind us but we will continue to build on the momentum and awareness raising it has generated.

Our ‘Talking Heads’ series of mini videos has reached the grand total of 40, with contributors talking about what they do to keep themselves well and including some famous faces.  We’ve had people talking about common misconceptions about self management, why it is important to them, what it isn’t and how people live their best life despite any conditions. Check out the @SelfMgmtScot X feed for the individual videos or head over to the ALLIANCE YouTube channel for one of the most inspiring half hours you might spend this week!

We held eight events across the Week, including a Health Walk around Linlithgow Loch led by the Links Worker Team, which was attended by over 40 regular health walk participants from across Glasgow. There was a ‘Connect and Chat’ session around mental wellbeing held at The Albany Centre and the new Moira Anderson Foundation Glasgow Hub held an open day which was fully booked. Four online events were held, attended by approximately 70 individuals in total and with topics ranging from supported self management and voice recognition for digital self management resources to nature connection for wellbeing and strengthening the impact of our networks. Participants reported feeling inspired and feeling “encouraged to increase collaboration with [their] team to plan self management”, as a result. The recorded presentations from these events will be made available on YouTube in the coming weeks.

And of course, we had the Self Management Awards ceremony, in person for the first time since 2019!  After three years of online celebrations, it was wonderful to be in the same room for the occasion as we celebrated the wide range of self management activity that takes place in our communities; from resources, digital innovation, the arts, sensory loss; to empowering projects, champion of the year and the publicly voted self management in the community. Those in attendance fed back how they loved being in a room together and that hearing the different speakers and stories of the nominees was fantastic. I’ll finish off with a quote from one participant who summed it up nicely:

“What an inspiring bunch of people. I commend all the incredible work happening across Scotland by the third sector, individuals and communities.”

End of page.