'An amazing woman' - charity founder praised for incredible work
“An amazing woman,” was the verdict of Ward 21 candidate Rebecca Machin after her meeting with Alyson Smith, the founder and executive manager of Lochaber Hope.
A registered charity in Fort William, Lochaber Hope offers mental health support and personal development opportunities to everyone in the area.
Rebecca Machin, the candidate for Fort William and Ardnamurchan in the by-election to be held in November, was visiting the charity with serving Councillor Sarah Fanet, who currently represents the Highland Council ward.
Ms Machin had first met Alyson through the Youth Philanthropy Initiative (YPI) when she was Head Teacher at Kinlochleven High School and her pupils had wanted to represent the organisation in the annual presentation event to win £3000 for local charities.
Ms Machin said: “At the time Lochaber Hope was mainly counselling and mentoring, employability and working with people who are experiencing vulnerable or crisis periods.
“The barriers to the work were considerable and she was even offered money to close the service, believe it or not. But she persisted, helping people who had no one to help them.”
Alyson had begun with 72 people, of whom she managed to get 49 into jobs.
She said: “I didn’t know if it was good or not. I went into job centre to get a job for myself as I had no income and the Job Centre were saying, ‘why are you here?’ You know more about getting people into work than we do.
“Five of those 49 did a feasibility study on what it takes to get into work and what was needed and that’s what we based Lochaber Hope support on.
“What people in the community need are soft skills. The people of Lochaber are the greatest asset but the question is how do you raise them up, and help them raise themselves up, to help them make the best of themselves.”
Alyson says because of the soft skill nature of the work, it can be hard to do measurability and impact assessments which can be important for grant applications.
One metric she used is that 52 people between 2018-19 walked into Lochaber Hope and said they were suicidal.
“100% of those people,” she says, “are still alive. It made me realise we needed to partner with other agencies like the Samaritans and Mikeysline to build the training and skills programmes people actually need, and want, and for them to be community led.”
“People prefer to go to people rather than organisations,” she continued, “It’s about building relationships, eating together, talking together, achieving together.”
Ms Machin and Councillor Fanet visited New Connections, hosted, ironically, in the old job centre. The facility is a space for people to get together and hosts all kinds of groups such as Care Lochaber, Wild Roots and the Freshwater Church.
“It allows people to have bad days and sad days but they have somewhere to go,” says Alyson.
School counselling, trained family therapists and the need for drugs and alcohol workers were also discussed and the Lochaber Hope has the scope and ambition to help expand these services locally but needs support from local councillors.
“The money we save the NHS in prevention, taking away bed blocking and the like is not recognised,” Alyson said.
Ms Machin agreed, adding: “All Alyson wants is people to get smarter and better at doing this stuff.
“She spoke really highly of our MSP Kate Forbes and says she is an amazing champion. But it is so frustrating.
“She needs all the help she can get and it is so good to see local solutions, locally applied to local problems. She just needs people to make sure the barriers are removed.”
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