High Praise for Balmoral Gate!

At TRFS, we believe everyone is unique and entitled to a fulfilling and meaningful life.  Christian has very kindly shared with us how his personalised support at Balmoral Gate in Glasgow has help shape who he is today!

"I started living in Balmoral Gate in 2017.  I have engaged in the support available to me throughout my time here, this has helped in all areas of my life and allowed me to grow as a person.

Firstly, Balmoral Gate has helped me with my confidence in the community. They offer many different activities, whether it is and individual activity for myself, or a group activity involving other residents.  There is always an option for me to get out and about, meeting new people and doing new things. I was able to meet a lot of new people through events held by Balmoral Gate, such as Christmas nights out or Balmorals own Gig at The Gate.  I have also been able to go on holiday with the service and all the other residents at the Calvert Trust.

This has allowed me to grow in confidence throughout my time here and help shape who I am today.

Balmoral Gate also give residents the opportunity to kickstart their dreams by involving different groups within the community, such as Momentum. They invited someone who worked with Momentum to the service to give a talk on what they were all about. This is where I realised the massive amounts of opportunities available to me.   They invited me along to engage in their course which aims to help people gain skills in all aspects of their life. I started working on my CV, and different interview techniques. This allowed me to see my progression from when I started living at Balmoral Gate, to where I am now. With this practice, they helped me get an interview for an opportunity to volunteer. With all my hard work and effort I had put into this, I managed to get a volunteering role at the Yoker Community Centre.

The project provides a social support service to local disabled adults with learning difficulties or disabilities. With the support that I had been receiving at Balmoral Gate from the moment I moved in, I was much more comfortable and confident in the community and able to work with others. I have been at my volunteering position for over 6 months now, and I have made very good progress in my time there. I started out only volunteering 1 day per week which was perfect to start with. I then had an opportunity to take on an extra days volunteering which really helped me build on my routine. This gave me a feeling of what it may be like for when I get paid employment.

I have recently progressed even further in my volunteering role. Rather than just providing an in house service for all adults, we will now be able to go into the community and further everybody’s skills and development in other areas of their life.

During my time at Balmoral Gate, I have noticed a positive difference in my mental health, physical health and overall wellbeing. The opportunities I have had since living here have helped shape who I am today, and I’d recommend the service to anybody!"