Ideas for company volunteering days Companies are increasingly enabling their staff to get involved with local projects, either regularly or as a one-off (often ‘team-building’) exercise, including through large national events like the Jewish community’s Mitzvah Day and CSV’s Make a Difference Day. Although the ideas in this doc are intended for one-off group volunteering […]

Think Tank: Fix the workplace, not the workers Here’s an inspiring, challenging excerpt from article in www.telegraph.co.uk 6th Nov They may be annoying but they’re right, so employers must act on the demands for feedback from the Millennial generation. Kimley-Horn, a large American engineering firm, takes a peer-to-peer approach. At this sprawling 60-office company, anybody […]

You may already know that Mind are launching a major inquiry into crisis care, including inpatient care. There is certainly an issue about whether yet more research into inpatient care is sensible or helpful given the work of City University, the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health etc. But my main concern is that there might […]

The Washington Post publishes the winning submissions to its yearly neologism contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternative meanings for common words. Some winners are: 1. Coffee (n.), the person upon whom one coughs. 2. Flabbergasted (adj.), appalled over how much weight you have gained. 3. Abdicate (v.), to give up all hope […]

Hello To cut to the chase, Star Wards is only possible thanks to the exceptional support I get to manage my very debilitating mental illness. I’m very reliant on the Samaritans who provide something very distinctive to the remarkable 24/7 access I have to my two specialist therapists. Samaritans have been shortlisted for Lloyds Bank’s […]

From his new book, A Journey “I have a few rules about people I work with really closely. Work comes first. No blame culture. Fun in its proper place is good. Disloyalty has no place. Look out for each other. Stick together. Respect each other. It helps if you also like each other.” I like […]

This has to be one of the very very very best examples of our members’ creativity- and of patients’. Here’s what Emily Barber (Lead Occupational Therapist, Northumberland, Tyne & Wear NHS Foundation Trust) sent me about their genius welcome bags. Huge thanks to Emily, colleagues and patients for letting us share this with the Star […]

Is this the ultimate Star Wards’ tabloidesque headline? Comes from great blog from a USA west coast Clearview Women’s Residential Treatment Center for women with emotional dysregulation, including BPD. I’m sure my local NHS trust would be happy to pay a rather large amount of money for me to stay there for a few weeks to […]

Here’s our first ever blog partly in Welsh! well, indirectly, via the press release about the fabulous Ablett Unit in Rhyl, which will feature in our next newsletter.   This will challenge my spellchecker!   Uned Ablett yn ennill Gwobr ‘Star Wards’ am ofal cleifion rhagorol Ar 2 Mehefin 2010, cyflwynwyd gwobr ‘Star Wards’ i Uned […]

A quick mention of diverting mentally ill offenders from the criminal justice system but mainly the world’s best recipe.