The Place of Kindness
Combating loneliness and building stronger communities
Zoë Ferguson, Carnegie Associate
Mental Health North East firmly believes that understanding kindness in family, friends and community is a big step on the way to better mental health for us all.
This article posted on the Guardian website by Denis Campbell highlights the growing concerns being raised by MPs about the potential risk of harm to the mental health children and young people of using the web. MHNE would support the call by the commons health select committee for "the Department of Health and NHS England's joint taskforce, now investigating, alongside bodies such as the UK Council for Child Internet Safety, the mental health of under-18s, to assess the impact of social media". Click HERE to read the full article
This series of downloadable pamphlets brings together all documents relating to DBS referrals guidance click HERE to view
Listed below are some interesting articles from the Mental Elf website click on the links to view
Second National Audit of Schizophrenia highlights lack of progress for service users and carers
Is suicide contagious? Definition and epidemiology of suicide clusters
NHS England has published Achieving Better Access to Mental Health Services by 2020, a five-year ambition to put mental health on a par with physical health services. click on the link to view report mental-health-access.pdf
The Care Act regulations and guidance for local authorities have been strengthened as a result of consultation. Click HERE
for a downloadable copy
The report from the Royal College of Psychiatrists indicates people with schizophrenia are not getting the treatment they need - it includes an in-depth look at what this means and what might be done to address the problems.
New National Women’s Self Injury Helpline
Emotional support, listening & signposting for women affected by self injury
0808 800 8088 - available Wednesday 7-9pm & Thursday 3-5pm
It is intended that the hours are extended as the service grows.
This is an independent, confidential and anonymous service. The helpline is run by women for women and we will support anyone who identifies as a woman who wants to talk about self-harm and/or self-injury.
All calls are confidential and answered by specially trained female volunteers.
Volunteers may listen to calls as part of training
We do not record calls or pass on personal information
Line is run by Self Injury Support
Regional Voices has been working with partners at NHS Confederation and the Local Government Association to demonstrate the evidence that the voluntary and community sector (VCS) holds that can be used by commissioners and policy makers, to help build on the strengths of communities and help better meet the needs of local populations. This Briefing ("Comparing Apples with Oranges"), primarily aimed at members of health and wellbeing boards and relevant to both statutory and VCS partners, gives an overview of the knowledge, expertise and insight that voluntary and community sector organisations may hold about their local communities and diverse groups of people within these, as well as the different ways this knowledge can be used to enhance joint strategic needs assessments (JSNAs) and commissioning.
Drawing on examples from around the country, it aims to support health and wellbeing boards think about the way they currently use VCS evidence and to help them consider the different ways they could be using it. Regional Voices has also produced a suite of case studies looking, in more depth, at different approaches to sharing "evidence"- in all shapes and sizes. These range from anonymised client data, insight from services, routes to support commissioners engage specific communities, partnerships to co-design solutions and different ways infrastructure organisations are supporting local organisations to develop the evidence based. You can download the briefing report here. You can download a voluntary sector evidence poster here. And you can get direct access to a wide range of case studies, presentations and so on from Regional Voices here.
Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM) the male suicide prevention charity, have launched a free web-chat service offering support, information and signposting to men who are depressed or in crisis. Suicide is the leading killer of men aged 20-49 in the UK, and has overtaken coronary heart disease as a killer in older men aged up to 50. The latest statistics show that 77% of all suicides in the UK were male.
Open every day between 6pm–9pm, users can chat anonymously and confidentially to trained helpline staff. The web-chat can be accessed on the CALM website: http://www.thecalmzone.net/get-help
CALM already provides a free, confidential helpline open every day 5pm – midnight
0800 585858 (national)
CALM’s helpline takes around 4,000 calls a month.
The web-chat service hours will be extended to match those of the helpline (5pm – midnight) by the end of October 2014.