National Rural Mental Health Forum Seminar

This seminar from the National Rural Mental Health Forum features a fascinating set of speakers: Scottish Tech Army on getting help for your organisation, ALLIANCE on reducing gambling harm, and Support in Mind on a benefits advice app.

Full details of the programme as follows:

11:05am Kirsty McIntosh - Scottish Tech Army - Get help for your organisation

The Scottish Tech Army began with an idea. Maybe your organisation is facing higher levels of demand as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, maybe you are having to operate in a new way, or maybe you are trying to capture or share information. If you don’t already have experience of doing this or don’t have the capacity in-house to deliver it, that is exactly the kind of problem that we want to hear about.

You don’t need to worry about how it will be done - you just have to be able to describe the challenge you are facing and the Scottish Tech Army will take responsibility for assessing the technical feasibility and the level of effort to deliver it. If we think we can help, we will work to put together the team to work with you on the solution.

The Scottish Tech Army aim is to keep both the process and the solutions tightly focussed so that they can be delivered quickly - we know that speed is of the essence.

12.05 William Griffiths, Alliance: Lived Experience Forum

Scotland Reducing Gambling Harm – Findings from our engagement with people with lived experience

The Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland has brought together a group of people with lived experience of gambling harm to inform actions and priorities to reduce gambling harm in Scotland. The Scottish Lived Experience Forum is working to inform and accelerate the National Strategy to Reduce Gambling Harms, a strategy launched in 2019 by the Gambling Commission.

This presentation from Programme Manager Will Griffiths and a member of the Lived Experience Forum, will be an opportunity to:

• learn more about people’s experiences of gambling harm,

• hear what priorities the Lived Experience Forum has identified to reduce these harms in Scotland, and

• hear more about work taking place across Scotland to reduce gambling harm in partnership with Public Health Scotland, Scottish Government and others.

This will be a follow up from the August 2020 presentation for the National Rural Mental Health Forum outlining plans for establishing the Lived Experience Forum. We know that people are facing significant harm from gambling across Scotland and that this harm presents itself for people in multiple ways including harm to their mental and physical health; relationships; and finances. It will also impact on people’s families and wider community. Addressing and understanding these harms must include people with lived experience.

12:45 Benefits Advice App - Kevin Ferguson, Support in Mind Scotland