Outside the Box Mums’ Peer Support Research

The Benefits of Peer Support Why mums join groups   Following on from our initial work setting up mums’ peer support groups in the Scottish Borders 11 years ago, we decided it was a good opportunity to follow up with some of those original mums and to talk to others about informal peer support. We…

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Hello and welcome to our latest Outside the Box South-East Newsletter. Where has the year gone, it is flying by. It has been great being able to get out and see people in person again, it really does feel like some sort of ‘normality’ is returning. As always, we have been very busy here in…

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By leaves we live

By leaves we live Creating community in a green world ‘How many people think twice about a leaf? Yet the leaf is the chief product and phenomenon of Life: this is a green world, with animals comparatively few and small, and all dependent upon the leaves.’ This quote from Sir Patrick Geddes (1854-1932) is equally,…

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Community Solutions

Collaborative Commissioning Resources The Independent Review of Adult Social Care 2021 recently published recommendations for the reform of commissioning and procurement of social care and the Improvement Service also published a briefing report on participatory budgeting.   These new published resources contain lots of information about commissioning that community and third sectors organisations could find useful;…

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A big welcome for Central Wellbeing SCIO! A sunny lake and trees

Big welcome for Central Wellbeing SCIO! Outside the Box has been working in Falkirk for almost 7 years now, involved in a variety of projects, big and small. One of the first was the Moving Assistance Project which finished in March 2016. The idea for the project came from older people who said they would…

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Borders Buddies Resources

Borders Buddies Resources Posted September 9th 2021 by Christine Borders Buddies is a project by Outside the Box, funded by the Scottish Borders Tweeddale Community Fund. The broad aims of the project are to support people and groups to reconnect and start getting back to doing things they enjoyed doing before the pandemic. This little…

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Connection and Learning with Digital Buddies Update on where things are going The Digital Buddies project has felt unbelievably wholesome and energising from the start. Now we can support more people to get involved – across Scotland and across generations – the possibilities are growing! We’ve been able to access more funding to support people…

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Title image with Scottish Government and Outside the box logos

Tips for inclusive family groups and buggy walks New Tips guide for family groups Read and download our new resource: Tips for inclusive family groups and buggy walks. This blog shares why we think informal social connections and support among families is powerful – and ideas for shaping inclusive groups. Family connections and supportive peer…

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Digital Buddies how-to guides and videos

Digital Buddies how-to guides Digital access and peer learning Getting online and learning digital skills can be transformative – or frustrating. It can take ages to work out how to change accessibility settings on your phone, download a banking app, or listen to a podcast. In the Digital Buddies project, we’ve had the benefit of being…

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Borders Buddies. A new project supporting people in the Scottish Borders to address barriers and enjoy their communities!

OTB South-East are very pleased to announce the official launch of our Borders Buddies project! Thanks to funding from Scottish Borders Council Community Fund for Tweeddale, we are able to deliver this important new project to support people to start to get back to normal activities.   We know that not everyone will feel comfortable…

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