6th Annual Wellbeing Conference
This annual event, kindly sponsored, assisted and largely organised by ‘Always A Chance’, for the sixth time, commenced as people arrived, during the Friday evening. Twelve old and new members re-acquainted themselves, or socialised for the first time, in the bar and hospitality areas of the new Sunley Hotel, and Waterside bar and restaurant, at the new University of Northampton £330 million campus. A further six people arrived on the Saturday morning. The 20 attendees represented tragedies occurring in 11 different countries.
A busy weekend had been planned, with formal presentations on the Saturday, followed by a more relaxing, wellbeing day on the Sunday.
After welcomes, and housekeeping matters, Saturday started with a round-table introduction by each of the members present, where each victim family had a chance to summarise and update the progress on each of their tragic cases. Members find that the ability to talk openly and honestly about their circumstances with similar, understanding families is extremely therapeutic.
The first presentation of the day was by Tony Rafter, Head of the Victims and Witness unit at the Ministry of Justice. He explained about the new National Homicide Service from 1st April 2019 with £6.4m funding arrangements (over 2 years) being provided through Victim Support, who are now able to offer all forms of support for both pre-, and post-2010 victim families.
After lunch, the afternoon session was a fascinating presentation by Liam Brolan, lecturer and researcher in criminology at Birmingham City University. He explained that crime was not a "thing" but was defined differently in different times, different locations, and by those who had the power to enforce. This was a good interactive session with lots of questions in both directions.
This talk was followed by an update on Murdered Abroad’s charitable activities.
The evening was spent at local pub, the Old White Hart Inn, a short walk from the University, with food served, again courtesy of ‘Always A Chance’.
Sunday morning formally commenced with a talk by Kizzy Boden on "Practical steps towards Coping and Recovery". This was followed by a very moving presentation by Alison Eagleton, one of Murdered Abroad’s members. Thoughts and aspirations were written by each member on a card and placed in a sealed envelope, ready for next year’s meeting to review. Then attendees wrote personal messages on their own yellow ribbons, and then moved out onto the fourth floor balcony overlooking the Nene canal basin to attach them to the model tree.
University of Northampton’s £330 million campus