In part one, we look at some questions you asked about our activities and give some answers.
Every year we ask everyone how useful they thought our activities were and what they would like to see happen in the following year.
2025 marks 15 years since Michelle agreed to volunteer to take on the running of a small peer group.
Bipolar Edinburgh has flourished under her leadership and thanks to all our volunteers we have expanded the activities we offer.
2024 saw 689 attendees at our events covering all-ages group meetings, carers groups, 18-30 groups, cuppa n' chats, swim, gym and coffees, visits to museums or cathedrals, sketching workshops, creative writing workshops, crafternoons, recovery-based training etc.
Your answer on a scale of 1 to 10 to the question:
"How likely would you be to recommend us if you had a friend or colleague living with bipolar?"
was a reassuring 8.75 overall, which is fantastic!
We thought we'd try to answer some of the questions that came up in the survey and next month talk about some of the topics you asked for. Here goes:
"I cannot come to the monthly meeting online as I am busy every Thursday. Recordings would help."
Thanks for bring this common request up. We don’t feel able to record the meetings for two reasons: a) Not everyone in the meeting may feel comfortable being recorded. b) We aren’t lawyers, but we think we might fall foul of the Adult Support and Protection (Scotland) Act 2007 if we didn’t obtain everyone’s consent.
"Though the monthly speakers can be interesting, I think I would prefer just having a discussion about different people's experiences of bipolar and what has helped them."
We understand that some people might prefer a more support-group focussed approach to meetings, where people sit in a circle while a facilitator guides people to talk in turn about what is going on for them. That is a long-standing approach to both recovery and mental health forums.
Our approach over the last 15 years has been to have expert speakers deliver a talk about a particular aspect of bipolar or allied topic each month, interspersed with group discussions where members share their knowledge and experience about a specific theme and we collate that information and publish it online (this month’s sleep discussion is a good example of a member-led discussion).
Members then spend the second half of the meeting chatting and sharing peer support.
There are pluses and minuses to these different approaches, but we believe the current format suits our group best:
Our meeting sizes recently average over 20 people in-person and 7 joining online. That’s probably too many for a support group format. By comparison, Bipolar Scotland support groups average around 6 per group which gives each person attending a chance to speak. ( we try to publicise Bipolar Blethers which are held online on Sunday afternoons and there is a good in-person group in West Lothian that you might like to attend. More details about Bipolar Scotland support groups here.)
We aim to be a community of peers living with bipolar. Peer volunteers arrange social events such as Cuppa ‘n’ Chats, Sketching Workshops etc. as well as meetings so that over time, members start to get to know one another socially better than they might do in a support group. We may become friends with certain peers over time, perhaps becoming available to support one another when needed.
The discussion topics change monthly and are chosen each year by you in the annual poll, hopefully keeping things fresh but relevant.
The numbers suggest it’s an approach that works for many of us. If we compare the annual attendances at the 77 support groups run by Bipolar UK versus our meetings, then after adjusting for the populations of England versus Edinburgh, someone living with bipolar in Edinburgh is twenty times more likely to attend our events than they would in England.
Our format of having expert speakers talk about a particular topic around bipolar might be thought of as lying half-way between a formal psychoeducational approach (that might be delivered by NHS psychologists and trainers to help us learn about our condition) and the informal peer support approach of a support group. Research has suggested that while both approaches are effective at reducing relapse, formal psychoeducation may be more effective than informal peer groups. However, bipolar psychoeducation has been found to be too expensive to deliver via the NHS (around £37,500 per quality-adjusted life year) whereas our support delivered through a mix of volunteers and expert speakers giving their time for free is likely to be a far more cost-effective way of reducing relapse.
"I can only come to online events these days so these are very important to me. I am busy with other things on a Thursday evening so a summary by email would be helpful for me."
Thank you for bringing this important point up. Where we currently are is that we summarise what went on at the meetings in an article published in the Latest News section on the website each month.
We link to that article as the first item on our monthly email newsletter. (If you don’t receive the newsletter you can sign-up here).
E-mail newsletters do not achieve a 100% guaranteed delivery these days as they can get caught in your spam folder.
To avoid this, you might add the email info@bipolaredinburgh.org.uk to your safe senders list. Video instructions on how to do this in Gmail are found here.
If you can get in the habit of checking the "latest news" page on the website as well as the "what's on" page, you should be able to read what happened at a previous group.
Ice breaker - people don't know each other. It would be nice to be introduced to new people.
Great suggestion – thank you! We have recently introduced name badges so that those who wish to wear them can do so. Name badges are a proven way to help people connect with people they don't know. But maybe we could also introduce an ice-breaker for those attending in person - maybe after the talk has finished. That's worth a try so thanks for the suggestion and watch this space!
Would you be interested in volunteering for Bipolar Edinburgh?
Quite a number of you said "yes" to this question. Thank you! It's an anonymous survey, so we don't know who you are, but if you want to find out more about volunteering with us, then please drop Michelle an email: info@bipolaredinburgh.org.uk
Next month:
In part 2 we will cover what topics were popular requests from the survey and get an insight from Michelle as to highlights of talks from the last 15 years.
Stay well and thank you for being a part of this group which clearly means a lot to many of us.