A NEW course to help the community in Ardrossan build confidence and safety will be held starting next month.

The course will be delivered over four weeks in October, with each session focusing on an area of Community Safety/Confidence Building. Each session will be delivered by Dr Danielle Farrel with input from Alan Bell, Voluntary Executive Manager of The Scottish Centre for Personal Safety.

Dr Danielle Farrel is Managing Director of Your Options Understood (Y.O.U.) which is a community interest company functioning as a non-profit organisation based in Irvine.

Danielle has Cerebral Palsy and is a wheelchair user.

Danielle’s motivations for setting up Y.O.U. as an organisation stem from her first-hand knowledge and experience of living with a disability and they support disabled individuals, and those that support them, through a range of services including Advocacy, Consultancy, Self-Directed Support Advice and Staff Training.

Recently Danielle has moved into her own home in the community after residing in a transitional residential unit. Due to this, Danielle has a personal understanding of how daunting moving from one environment to another can be. She also understands the importance of Community Safety and being confident whilst living in your home regardless of having a disability or not.

Y.O.U. has been awarded funding from ‘Our Place’ and in order to use this funding appropriately, Danielle will be working in partnership with Alan Bell from The Scottish Centre for Personal Safety.

From 1997 to 2013 Alan ran ‘Security And Safety’, a social enterprise providing personal safety, practical self-defence and first aid courses throughout Scotland and based in the Scottish Highlands.

It was felt however that the social enterprise should emphasise the not-for profit nature of the training services they provided and so on May 31, 2013 The Scottish Centre for Personal Safety was born and registered as a Scottish charity.

Since then, the charity has grown and now has a base at the former Barony St. John’s church hall building in Ardrossan. As the Managing Director of Y.O.U. Danielle now has use of the Training Room facility within the hall building and is glad to welcome the opportunity of developing the working partnership between the two organisations.

Course Details:

The Confidence Building/Community Safety course provided by Y.O.U. is free of charge and will be delivered every Thursday in October, beginning on Thursday, October 5, in the Barony St. John on Prince’s Street, Ardrossan.

Each session will run for one hour from 1-2pm and are FREE OF CHARGE as costs will be covered by The Big Lottery’s ‘Our Place’ funding.

Anyone who feels they will benefit can come along but places are limited to only eight per session so please contact Danielle on 07938998091 to book your place.

The sessions will be as follows:

Session 1: Thursday 5th October @ 1pm - Welcome and Induction

Session 2: Thursday 12th October @ 1pm - Confidence Building

Session 3: Thursday 19th October @ 1pm - Community Safety Officer

Session 4: Thursday 26th October @ 1pm - Bogus Caller and Summary