I travelled up to North London early this morning for an ICT in Mental Health Event organised by the ICT Hub. During registration I got chatting to a lady from MIND and she asked me about LifeSIGNS. I was only too happy to answer her questions, and soon found others were listening and asking for my card – easy networking over a coffee!

The first speaker, Johanna Davies from the Digital Inclusion Team, spoke about the importance of the internet in today’s society, and especially in the field of mental health where it is easier for people to communicate openly and honestly across the net. I thought of our vibrant Message Board and how our members talk so freely, safely, and anonymously, about their emotions and and the things that are troubling them.

Next to speak was Joe from the Samaritans (yes, it is his real name!) who spoke of the problems they faced keeping up with technology and how relatively new services such as Text Messaging had really taken off faster than they anticipated. I was interested to learn that that the average text ‘conversation’ they have with people is of around 40 texts. This seemed a lot to most people, but, and I’m sure Wedge would vouch for this, I’m a keen texter and I wasn’t surprised at all!

The Samaritans are part of Bebo’s Be Well Centre, of which LifeSIGNS is also proud to be a part.

We then split into groups for our chosen workshops. I was a little surprised when we were asked to stand up, give our name and organisation, and speak a little about what we do, but I was growing quite fond of my own voice by then and happily spoke about LifeSIGNS and answered some questions.

The workshops themselves were a great refresher for me, and have given me some things to ponder. More than anything though, they confirmed to me that, thanks to Wedge, we are already fully up-to-date with everything ‘technical’, including our online communication and social networking. In fact I found myself answering more questions about LifeSIGNS and how we make use of Facebook and MySpace in order reach more people.

All in all, a very worthwhile day away from the computer, but now it’s back to SIAD!