August 26, 2022

Cumbria CVS has welcomed more new members to the team over the last few months, all bringing a wealth of knowledge and experience to the organisation.

We extend a warm welcome to:

Lesley Hinds
Third Sector Referral Co-ordinator (Mental Health)

With a background in health and care, predominantly working in community-based teams, Lesley is an Occupational Therapist with experience of supporting people with complex needs. She will be working in liaison with the eight Integrated Care Community (ICC)’s across the north of Cumbria, to support people to engage with third sector organisations to facilitate engagement with their community, enhancing social capital and promoting wellbeing. The role will include supporting the work to develop multidisciplinary team meetings in the Carlisle ICC with a specific focus on patients with serious mental illness and mental wellbeing support needs.

 

Omotayo Opaola
Evaluation and Research Officer

Omotayo joins us having completed an 8-month research internship with South Lanarkshire Council, supporting with data analysis and reporting for the mid-term evaluation of the community and council plan. During this time, she was simultaneously pursuing a master’s degree in Applied Social Research at the University of Stirling in Scotland, focussing on social research methodologies, qualitative and quantitative data analysis. Born in Nigeria, she moved to the UK last year, and will be supporting our projects to deliver effective monitoring and evaluation processes, as well as providing evaluation support to our members.

 

Shelley Studholme
Step Forward Project Manager

Shelley worked as a KS2 teacher for 15 years, before moving onto a role within the NHS CNTW IPS Service embedded into the West Cumbria Community Mental Health Teams and EIP (Early Intervention in Psychosis) Teams. She joins us as Project Manager for our new Step Forward into Volunteering and Employment Service, which will support individuals with Severe Mental Health Experiences (SMHE) into volunteering and employment opportunities. The service will be a hopeful service, working in partnership, to enable individuals to move forward with the correct support, interventions, skills and relevant training.

 

Becky Towns
Step Forward Project Officer

Becky joins our new Step Forward project, working with local employers and third sector organisations to support adults with SMHE to get into volunteering or work experience and hopefully find a pathway into paid employment opportunities on a local level. In her spare time she volunteers for Carlisle Dementia Action Alliance, managing their social media channels in her Dementia Friends Ambassador role. She is also a Mental Health First Aider and an Enterprise Advisor as part of Cumbria Careers Hub, and is looking forward to helping support and encourage those with SMHE to reach their potential.

 

Maria Bezuszko
Step Forward Project Administrator

Having been one of our valued Digital Volunteers for the last 18 months, Maria has grown in confidence, developing her knowledge and learning new skills. With a strong interest in the role of mental health experiences on mind, body and wellbeing, she wants to bring her lived experience of SMHE to her role with the Step Forward project to help others.

 

We also welcome Jenny Braithwaite to our Board of Trustees as Treasurer – you can find out more about Jenny here

And we say farewell to Victoria Peake (Countywide Funding Support Officer), and from our Trustee team, Matthew Scott (Treasurer), Robin Cope, Joanna Coleman and Victoria Nicholson, who have left us recently.

Our sincere thanks go to them all for all their hard work and support during their time with us, and we wish them all the best for the future.