Hello All,
Next Meeting: Tuesday 7th April – 7:00pm at the Vietnam Veterans Federation, 3 Burkitt Street Page
You probably thought I’d fallen off the planet, but I have just taken some time out with my beautiful family. If you haven’t received an email, I have forgotten you; I just needed some rest and time to catch my breath. (it was a very busy 12 months). I am certainly more than ready for a big year a head for Picking Up The Peaces and very excited. You’ll be pleased to know that I haven’t been completely slack and have been working on a few things underground.
Following our Strategic Planning weekend Laurie and I have drafted up the butchers paper and have constructed a draft document for our Strategic plan 2009-2013. We’ll send it out for your consideration. Hopefully between all of us we can finalise the document. A big thank you to Laurie and those who attended the strategic planning weekend. We are on our way.
I was able to attend a week long course through ACT health, on health promotion – based on the Ottawa Charter. It was very educational and fantastic for our organisation and also the VVFACT. I have some excellent resources now. This will further assist younger veterans and emergency service personnel, before they succumb to this insidious disease, PTSD. Our motto “early detection early intervention”.
The health promotions course provided a great net-working opportunity also. People are really starting to talk about Picking Up The Peaces. The course facilitators were amazed at the success we had achieved considering we’re still in the infancy stages of establishing the campaign.
To follow up on this knew acquired knowledge, I also applied for sponsorship to attend the National Health Promotions conference in Perth , May 17 – 21st, and was successful, this is a fantastic opportunity also to promote and build on both organisations, and an excellent opportunity to net-work at a National Level.
Laurie and I scrambled through the paperwork and applied for a community funding grant through ACT health – The funding is to fund a part time consultant/coordinator, to assist with formalising and heading up the campaign to a higher level. We also asked for a paid Media and Marketing person to assist with design of promotional/educational material – Fingers crossed.
I hope everyone had a good break, my wish for everyone was to take some well deserved time out and spend time with your families, I know many people have put an enormous amount of effort into helping create this very needy and worthwhile campaign.
I would also like to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of you from the bottom of my heart, for your loyalty, commitment and bloody hard work over the past year. If it was just an email of support or attending BBQs, trekking Kokoda, assisting at the awareness day or attending meetings on cold winter nights, just having the support has been amazing and I cant thank you enough.
Below is a table from the Bureau of Statistic 2007 survey on mental health disorders. You will notice that PTSD is at 6.4% as apposed to Depressive episodes being 4.1%. This is our evidence basis for establishing this worthy campaign. I believe we can be National by 2013.
(*Australian Bureau of Statistics – 6.4% of 21,530,081 Australians)
Below are the agenda items for our next PUTP committee meeting. If you have any further items you would like to address please send them to me and I can add them to the list. If possible I would like to set the next meeting date for Tuesday 7th April – 7:00pm at the Vietnam Veterans Federation, 3 Burkett Street Page, Canberra . This is an excellent opportunity to really establish the campaign, roles, timelines and awareness day events. Plus discuss any further issues. Hope to see you there. If I have sent you this email and you would prefer to be taken off the email list, please notify me via email and I can remove you from the list.
Please take care and I hope to see you all very soon
Regards
Katie Tonacia
Meeting for PUTP
Tuesday 7th April – 7:00pm at the Vietnam Veterans Federation, 3 Burkitt Street Page
Agenda
Strategic plan Document
ACT Health Promotions short course
National Health Promotions Conference
Establishing Key Partnerships/Mapping Document
Building capacity
PTSD awareness day 2009
PTSD awareness day evaluation 2008
Project timelines
Roles and responsibilities
Meeting times and dates
Funding opportunities and grants
Louder than words/ media contact
