Campbeltown’s Woodlands Centre invited the community to find out all about the facility when it hosted an open day last Friday.
Woodlands is a registered learning disability day support service on Limecraigs Road, which is run by Argyll and Bute Health and Social Care Partnership and currently supports 19 people.
It is separate from Greenwood, a residential home for adults with learning disabilities, located in the same building, on the floor below.
Greenwood is managed by senior support worker Jennifer Rich, while Woodlands is managed by senior support worker Clare Russell.
Clare told the Courier: “At Woodlands, we provide essential person-centred support for individuals by helping people with learning disabilities/physical disabilities and complex conditions access to and continue education and development, paid employment opportunities, life skills development and meaningful activities, achieve their desired outcomes and become more involved in their communities.
“We also promote and support independent living skills.”
One of the ways Woodlands staff do this is by supporting the centre’s service users’ new social group, with Friday’s event also serving as a fundraiser.
“The social group was created in September 2023 and is run solely by the people we support,” said Clare. “They have nominated their own committee and named the group Kintyre Highlanders.”
She added: “The purpose is to allow the people we support to have autonomy over how the service is run and give ideas on how to move forward.
“It is our mission to ensure the people we support are involved with the decision-making in all that we do at Woodlands.”
In addition to musical performances from Woodlands service users, with assistance from support worker Dianne Hendry, the open day featured information stalls from Woodlands’ partner agencies including Lomond and Argyll Advocacy Service, Inspiralba, Campbeltown’s retained fire fighters, Shopper-Aide and Kintyre Grows.
There were also two raffles, guess the number of sweeties in the jar and guess the birthday of the axolotl games, which helped to raise £482.50 for the Kintyre Highlanders group.
Key support worker Aileen Morris said: “The group has asked that the money raised goes towards a Christmas lunch.”
Clare added: “But it can be used for many different things – there is a trike for wheelchair users that some of the guys would like to purchase, so they are looking at things like that too.”
On behalf of the whole centre, the pair thanked all who attended the open day and everyone for their generous donations.