We are off to a mental health Professional Development Workshop in Kampala!
On-going professional development is hugely important in any profession and perhaps even more so when those professionals often feel isolated by working alone and far from others. Bringing practitioners together allows not only the development of knowledge, skills and understanding but also the building of new support networks.
Jamie’s Fund is proud to again be sponsoring a professional development workshop in at the National Psychiatric Hospital at Butabika in Kampala in September 2019. This follows last year’s very successful inaugural workshop. This is a helpful location as it is reasonably central and also some of the tutors will also be from the government services. The programme is being led by Joshua Ssebunnya. Joshua is a well-known psychologist with many publications to his name, and he is based at Butabika. We are fortunate to have his support.
We are greatly encouraged that so far, we have 28 people coming from 17 different hospitals or health centres, across Uganda. We are also delighted to be welcoming one isolated member of staff just over the north-western border from Arua in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Many of those attending are staff we have been working with over the past few years, but others we will be meeting for the first time.
Generous donations have covered about three quarters of the cost of the workshop, but we are still looking for a further thousand pounds or so. If you are able to contribute please either e-mail info@jamiesfund.co.uk or go to the donation page and say your donation is for the workshop.
While we are in Uganda we intend to make the most of being there and to visit as many hospitals and health centres as we can. This will enable us to see where people are based, to understand local issues and concerns and to develop relationships. Also, and perhaps most importantly, it is encouraging for staff who can feel isolated to be encouraged and affirmed in the vital work they are doing. Excitingly, the number of hospitals and health centres to visit has doubled as we have recently been made welcome to build the relationships with those run by the Catholic church in addition to the 12 we already work with affiliated to the Anglican Church of Uganda.
This increase in the number of locations will further stretch our slim resources but it will also means that we are supporting a much wider network of hospitals and health centres. This will further strengthen the support network that is already developing. We believe that as the network develops the hospitals and mental health staff in each area can do more to support and encourage each other. Please click for a map of all the places we are in contact with.
Three of the Jamie’s Fund team are going to Uganda on this occasion: Linda Shuttleworth & Maureen and Ewan Wilkinson. We are also delighted to be joined by Dr Simon Tavernor, a consultant psychiatrist in the UK who is considering working with Jamie’s Fund.
Maureen and Ewan Wilkinson will be writing a blog during their visit to Uganda and you are welcome to follow what they are up to here.
Ewan Wilkinson
