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North Ayrshire residents to be offered “Peace of Mind”

  • Area of Work: The ALLIANCE
  • Type: News Item
  • Published: 8th October 2024
Illustration of five different coloured houses against a pale orange background. From left to right, the houses are purple, blue, yellow, pink, and green. In each of the houses sits a person.

Funding from the National Lottery Awards for All Scotland scheme will fund an innovative programme aimed at reducing social isolation.

Thanks to funding from the National Lottery Awards for All Scotland scheme, North Ayrshire residents will shortly be offered “Peace of Mind”, an innovative programme aimed at reducing social exclusion and isolation.

The programme is run by Peace of Mind Services, a social enterprise established in 2016 and who have been working closely with Fife Health & Social Care Partnership (the body responsible for providing community support to the people of Fife) for the past 3 years.

Over this time, the programme has established 7 groups across the region, supporting 50 individuals who were previously attending local day care centres.  People participating in the groups have taken part in a range of social activities including lawn bowling; arts & crafts and visiting various Scottish cities and museums.

A number of attendees have went on to find volunteering opportunities at local foodbacks and even moved into paid employment.

Now the co-founders, Colin Millar & Jim Withers, are bringing the programme to North Ayrshire thanks to the National Lottery grant.

Speaking of the opportunity this presents, Jim, an Ayrshire resident himself, explained:

“We’ve seen a dramatic difference in the overall well-being of the people we’re supporting in Fife.  They’ve went from day care services to learning to travel independently, take part in local causes such as foodbanks and travel all over the country enjoying the best Scotland has to offer.

We’re delighted that the National Lottery has awarded us funding to bring this innovative approach to my own doorstep and hopefully we can see similar successes here and across Ayrshire as the programme develops.”

The team are already accepting referrals to the programme which will formally launch in North Ayrshire on 9th October 2024 at the TACT 25th Anniversary celebrations being held at their offices in Saltcoats.

You can register your interest or the details of someone you support by visiting www.peace-of-mind.scot.

The team are also planning a number of awareness raising campaigns across the region.

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