A known method of communication but done with style, the Bierley Bulletin is a service-user led magazine that details everything going on in the hospital. Its aim is to make communication better by showing all the amazing things that have been going on in the hospital for the past 3 months.

Cygnet Bierley

It can be tricky communicating sometimes. It can be tricky in your private life and it can be very tricky in your professional life. To put it bluntly, it can be annoying. Things get lost all the time through a lack of communication and important things slip through the crack. It was from experiencing this (and being very annoyed) that the Bierley Bulletin was created.

A known method of communication but done with style, the Bierley Bulletin is a service-user led magazine that details everything going on in the hospital. Its aim is to make communication better by showing all the amazing things that have been going on in the hospital for the past 3 months. It was important that the magazine be led by the service users as it keeps its realness. We’ve seen magazines before where it’s all information and no fun – nobody really wants to read 20 pages about audits, meetings and rules. The heart is there but it wasn’t done right. We didn’t want the magazine to be corporate, very black and white and ‘uptight’. We wanted cool pictures, colourful backgrounds, amazing interviews and stories and most importantly, we wanted it to be interesting.

Service users have an option to come on the team as either an editor, journalist or photographer. This allows service user’s choice of what they want to do and lets them explore talents they may have such as photography or creative writing. This lets them choose the topics, choose what it looks like and how it’s set up. The team isn’t fully complete yet but we hope the more attention the magazine gets, the more likely service users are to come forward.

The magazine itself is professional printed and shipped from the land of freedom eagles, America. This is what gives the magazine its edge on the competition (there really isn’t any competition). A digital version is also put up online and circulated to carers, family members, stakeholders and others so they are able to see what has been going on as well. The Bierley Bulletin Team has recently adopted to use a QR code. This was done to get the magazine out to more people and because magazines can get really expensive! We wish we could print out 100s and send them out but that’s a dream…for now. The magazine itself has numerous segments such as Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT) skill of the quarter, workout of the quarter, horoscope and golden moment. Our favourite is golden moment which lets us show a moment in the last 3 months which shows what humanity really is – people doing amazing things for each other.

We’re really proud of what the magazine is and what it can do. The feedback so far has been breath taking and its jus so good to see so many people like the stories, the colours and the magazine. A lot of time and effort has gone into the magazine and we hope you enjoy reading it as much as we have enjoyed making it.

You can read the magazine using the following link or scanning the QR code with your phone:

https://qrco.de/bierleybulletin