The Oxfordshire Mental Health Partnership brings together six local mental health organisations to make it easier for people to get the right support when they need it. Oxford Mind’s Benefits for Better Mental Health team are a key part of the partnership.
The Benefits for Better Mental Health team provides advice to people with mental health problems on any area of welfare benefits, whatever their circumstances. Through the partnership, the team has built closer links with social work staff working on mental health wards. It now also provides benefits support to people before they’re discharged.
This joined-up approach can make people’s move to independent living easier. They now leave hospital knowing where to get help.
Being admitted to or discharged from hospital can be a confusing and disorientating experience. So the team offers a wide range of support including helping people to understand entitlements, fill in forms and navigate a complex and confusing system.
Most people are unable to work after being discharged. So the focus is often on getting a basic income during recovery through Employment Support Allowance, Housing and Council Tax Benefits and the Personal Independence Payment.
Most people need to engage with the benefits agency to claim benefits. But this canaffect their mental health and stop recovery in its tracks. So the team also helps people to plan ahead and have a coping strategy in case things go wrong.
Mind’s Get Set to Go programme helps people with mental health problems find the physical activity that's right for them. It also supports them to stick at it for long enough to feel the physical, social and mental benefits of being active.
The programme is supported by Sport England and the National Lottery.
The 2017 Get active, feel good campaign promoted the link between getting active and improving mental wellbeing to women from South Asian communities. South Asian women have the lowest participation in weekly sport of any group.
The campaign was developed using a Campaign Sounding Board with representatives from Sporting Equals, Asian Sports Foundation, Black and Minority Ethnic Coaches Association, Sport England, Sheffield University and Rochdale and District Mind.
Mind also worked with over 50 women from South Asian communities at a Diwali event at Stanmore Temple, London, discussing mental wellbeing and physical activity barriers.
The campaign was a mixture of offline, online and media activity, aiming to:
Increase awareness of the importance of physical activity if you have a mental health problem, particularly for South Asian women
promote Mind’s high quality, unbiased information about the benefits of sport and physical activity
promote the Get Set To Go microsite to motivate people who are at the ‘contemplation’ and ‘preparation’ stage of their journey to be more physically active
promote the Elefriends online community as a source of practical peer support for people interested in taking up a sport or physical activity.
Mind worked with PAN, a specialist communications agency, to set up a focus group of 12 women from the target demographic to decide how to best to target this audience and develop key messages. Activities included:
Creating the Mind Wellbeing Award at Sporting Equals’ British Ethnic Diversity in Sports awards as part of a partnership
distributing flyers at Sporting Equals’ sport and physical activity groups, South Asian Women’s groups, the London marathon and 150 Mind shops
developing a new short film featuring a GSTG participant, a new blog from a South Asian woman and new social media content promoting the campaign’s key messages.
The campaign reached an estimated 884,292 people both online and off. It helped Mind engage with new audiences and develop new partnerships.
Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Foundation Trust (BSMHFT) and Birmingham Mind have been working in partnership to deliver a new recovery service at Rookery Gardens since July 2017.
The service represents a new approach to working with people detained under the Mental Health Act who are moving towards rehabilitation into the community. The development of the service involved the closure of two rehabilitation wards that were no longer fit for purpose.
The range of accommodation at Rookery Gardens includes shared houses, shared flats and self-contained single-person flats. The service is staffed 24 hours a day by an integrated team with psychiatric and nursing staff employed by the Trust and recovery navigators employed by Birmingham Mind.
It was a bumpy road at times with both organisations having to compromise but the service is extremely successful in:
Although only running for 2 years now there have been significant financial savings to BSMHFT as well as the improved outcomes for people using the service as stated above. Evaluation of the service also noted the reduction of incidents of aggression on site put down to:
The environment
A staff team that focuses on outcomes of the whole person
Privacy and freedom
A “yes you can” attitude
This was a bold move as there is no other model like this in the country but it clearly has blended the best of the two different cultures and knowledge to improve the outcomes for the people in the service.