The staff of the Highland Archive Service are continually exploring ways of making new links with groups and organisations across the Highlands, to promote the work of the service and to spread the word about the wonderful collections of records available for research.
We are consequently really pleased to have developed a good relationship over the past year with Highland One Stop Shop in Inverness. The centre supports individuals across the Highlands who suffer from autism. It all began last August…
Last year we were approached by the Team Leader of Autism Initiatives, based at the One Stop Shop in Inverness, and asked if we would organise a visit to the archive centre for a group of people from the One Stop Shop. We readily agreed and a visit was duly organised. During the visit the group found out about researching family and local history and looked at old photographs, documents and maps of the area. The visit was a great success and was swiftly followed by a second visit during”Doors Open Days” in September. That could well have been the end of the relationship, but it wasn’t…
We were then asked if we were able to offer any activities using the resources at the archive centre which would benefit people from the One Stop Shop in the world of employment. We knew exactly the way that we could help with this: experience has taught us that skills such as improved literacy and numeracy, use of computers and the internet, accompany the study of family history. We were fortunate enough to be granted funding by Inverness East Local District Partnership and our expert Family Historian designed a course of four one hour sessions for the group.
The course began in April, was held every fortnight and finished in June. It was well received with comments such as “I would like to see how documents are repaired, I have put my name on the waiting list for volunteering at the archive”.
So, was that the end of the relationship ? No, it was not. We are running another set of family history sessions for the One Stop Shop in September! It will be interesting to see what happens next.
