2023 has proved to be yet another successful year for my charity - The Scottish Centre for Personal Safety, based on Princes Street in Ardrossan.
We ran 190 Personal Safety training sessions and courses throughout the year, empowering 1,829 individuals - our highest number since we started way back in 1997.
Our courses for children and youths took place in Auchenharvie Academy, Irvine Royal Academy and Prestwick Academy as well as Ardrossan Girl Guides and girls from the Rainbow Muslim Women’s Group.
Our courses for people who are blind/vision impaired ran in Forth Valley Sensory Centre and our newly developed courses for people with autism and learning disabilities helped service users of Included and Neighbourhood Networks.
Our courses for ethnic minority groups helped service users of Score Scotland in Edinburgh, Amina in Glasgow and Rainbow Muslim women in Falkirk. And our Personal Safety for Women courses took place in various Women’s Aid groups across Scotland last year including Glasgow East, Edinburgh, Shakti, East and Midlothian, Perthshire, South Lanarkshire and East Renfrewshire, and even Shetland. We also ran this training for The Women’s Centre in Glasgow and female runners from Bellahouston Harriers.
Our Personal Safety in the Workplace courses also expanded last year as we ran courses for Homestart, Transform Forth Valley, Edrington, Thermo Fisher Scientific and the international law firm, CMS.
And finally, it was also a great year for our charity being recognised nationally. We were delighted to win the “Patron’s Award” category (Excellent people doing excellent things and making a difference every day) of the British Quality Foundation’s UK Excellence Awards 2023 in London.
Also, our work in developing a Personal Safety course for people with autism and learning disabilities saw us reach the Birmingham final of The National Learning Disabilities & Autism Awards 2023 in the category of “Supporting People with Profound and Multiple Learning Disabilities”; the Newcastle final of the Great British Care Awards 2023 in the category of “Outstanding Contribution to Social Care” and the Autism Hero Awards 2023 in the category of “Outstanding Education Award”.
All of this combined; the amount of people we have helped, the area we have covered, the development of a new Personal Safety course, and national award recognition, are all absolutely amazing. But what makes these achievements all the more phenomenal (and yes, I know I am biased) is that all this has been achieved with only eight, wonderful volunteers.
Impressed? Well, if any readers would like to join our team as a Personal Safety Instructor, please get in touch. It will take a lot of training but you get to seriously change people’s lives for the better once qualified.
Or if you think your workplace, organisation or youth group could benefit from our empowering Personal Safety training, please get in touch via my email Alan@ScotCPS.org.uk or visit our website www.ScotCPS.org.uk to learn more.
In the meantime, roll on 2024 and stay safe.
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