A busy summer for our mental health reps

by Owen Griffkin, Mental Health Participation Officer

The Mental Health Service User and Carer Representatives have had an enormously busy summer so far this year. I have been with them all over Powys helping them get out and about around the county.

When I first started in my role as Mental Health Participation Officer in 2017 it seemed that I was constantly out and about around Powys. Most of my work involved attending meetings or events either on my own, or accompanying the mental health reps to their meetings. Obviously lockdown meant that much of work life moved online, and one benefit of this was that lots of these work meetings continued online. This allows us to have people from all over Powys, and sometimes Wales, present at a discussion instead of having to travel to Llandrindod, or Newtown or wherever the meeting is. This is really useful in some situations, and it has allowed the reps more access to people working in Mental Health services in Powys.

Unfortunately, there was also a downside, as there was less opportunity for the reps to speak to people in communities which is the most important part of their role. That’s why it has been so refreshing to start running Meet The Rep events all over Powys, and to start attending community events with the reps. I think I have driven more miles in the last month than I did in the previous year.

Sally and Sarah at the Help & Information event in Machynlleth

The current reps - John, Sally, Sarah and Rhydian, decided that they wanted to get back out and make sure people knew who they were, and who they could speak to if they wanted to have a say in the way the Mental Health service is delivered. Therefore in June we held two Meet The Rep events in Newtown and Welshpool Ponthafren, and also attended a community Help and Information event in Machynlleth and a Pride Picnic organised by Credu at Llanfyllin Workhouse.

The reps set up stalls full of information about their roles, and spoke to people about their experiences of mental health services. There were activities as well that were relevant to the event. For example at the Pride Picnic, Sarah made some paper fortune teller origami sets. These were fun and dispensed tips on self-care as well as drawing people to our stall.

Sarah Dale said: "We as reps have been extremely busy in the north of Powys, out meeting people and discussing the work we do and some of you shared your views on the service. I believe as reps we cannot represent mental health service users and carers without gathering feedback. Every piece of information we gather does make a difference. Sometimes we may be able to help get you in touch with other organisations that may be able to help such as community mental health advocates. I understand that from the outside you may not know what happened to your feedback. I want you to know I try my very best to ensure each issue is addressed and actions taken to ensure that the service is fit for purpose.

I really enjoy organising activities for community engagement and meeting different people and networking with local organisations. I like listening to other people's experiences. Just listening can make a person in a difficult situation feel less alone, and talking to someone who has no affiliation with a specific organisation (I am just another service user) makes them feel more heard and understood, and brings that trust that we will ensure that their voice is heard. It can give people hope.

After a long break hopefully you will see us out and about again real soon.”

Sarah and Sally at the Pride Picnic in Llanfyllin

The serious part of the events was making sure that we gathered feedback from people about their experience in Powys and added these to an issues log. This issues log is then taken to a quarterly meeting with the Service Managers for Mental Health in Powys and any actions that are taken due to the feedback are noted and can be reported back to the person who gave the feedback in the first place.

Sally Houghton-Wilson said: “Having attended a few events, it's been really helpful to understand people's opinions, point of view and feedback on how they are finding the services, and what works best for them, what hasn't been helpful, and what their expectations are. It's nice to learn all about their experiences. And gives a clear indication of what's lacking within the system.”

The reps have also been continuing with their normal duties, attending Engage to Change and the Mental Health Planning and Development Partnership, which takes up a lot of their time. In fact, the reps now chair the Engage to Change meeting. (The Engage to Change group has been established to more widely promote the Mental Health Planning and Development Partnership’s activity, to proactively challenge any stigma associated with mental health and to collect service user views / experiences, co-ordinate resolution and feedback on resulting change, to people using services).

There have also been three Patients’ Council meetings where the reps listen to people’s experiences on the Felindre Ward.

Sarah delivered three Self Injury Awareness sessions to foster carers, staff from Child & Adolescent Mental Health Services’ teams and school nurses. These have been very well received and are helping to give people who are likely to come into contact with people who self harm the knowledge they need to have a caring and compassionate conversation, and not judge the people they speak to.

John and Josh at the Wales Mental Health & Wellbeing Forum in Llandrindod

It was also a pleasure for Powys to host the quarterly meeting of the Wales Mental Health and Wellbeing Forum in Llandrindod. This national group is a chance for all the service user reps from around Wales to meet and discuss what is happening in their area, and prepare reports that are sent to the Welsh Government. As Powys was the host, it fell upon John Lilley to chair the meeting. John gave an overview of co-production in Powys Mental Health services and there was a lot of approval from the group in regards to the work we are doing here.

John Lilley said: “Having attended several national forums in the past, and chairing one online during Covid, I knew roughly what was expected when it came to chairing in person. I was still a little nervous when the date came round and was grateful for Josh from Practice Solutions (who facilitates the forum) for co-chairing and Owen’s help in the regional update.

Knowing most of the attendees certainly helped calm the nerves and on the whole, I enjoyed the experience, though being a hybrid meeting I found it challenging to monitor the online screen for hands raised but with help from Josh I managed.

At times it was difficult to keep discussions relevant and on time but with gentle reminders of the agenda this became easier. Would I do it again? Yes and I also recommend people to try it. I found it a great learning opportunity and it boosts one’s confidence.”

Summer is traditionally a quiet time for the reps, a time to reflect on the year so far and plan for the future. However this summer they have really gone above and beyond what is expected of them in their roles, proving how much they deserved to receive the Outstanding Contribution award at this year's Powys Volunteer of The Year Awards.

If you would like to get involved in having your say in services, and be informed when there are future vacancies, then please fill in this expression of interest form here.

The BAT Project in North Wales

Staff from the Ablett Unit in Rhyl with voluntary sector agencies including Vale of Clwyd Mind, Unllais,
Therapy Dogs Nationwide and Twix the dog.

I recently found out about a new partnership project in North Wales called BAT - Bringing Agencies Together. It's all about supporting people who have been in contact with mental health services, specifically hospital, and bridging that gap between leaving the ward and returning to the community.

The BAT Project has been running in the two neighbouring counties of Conwy and Denbighshire for just over a year now. It is a massive geographical area to cover, taking in the sandy beaches of the North Wales coast from Llandudno across to Prestatyn, and sweeping south across parts of the Snowdonia National Park, east into the Clwydian Hills and right down to Llangollen. On its southern edge Denbighshire borders Powys, so we can definitely count the locals there as our near neighbours! 

Hannah Luhde-Thompson (4th from left in photo) is the Improvement and Partnerships Development Officer at Unllais, the mental health development, involvement, information and training agency covering North Wales (our sister agency in the North!) She told me more about the initiative:

Service users at the Ablett Unit at Glan Clwyd Hospital in Rhyl are being supported in their recovery and return to the community thanks to an innovative multi-agency group. The Bringing Agencies Together (BAT) project supports patients in identifying activities and groups which can help them in the transition back into their local community and continue to promote their health and wellbeing. We formed the BAT group (patients in the unit chose the name) in early 2016 and it has been a very successful, multi agency partnership. 

The project is a collaboration between the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board staff (including Ablett based Occupational Therapists, Clinical Psychologist, and Home Treatment and ward staff), the North Wales mental health development agency Unllais, and Vale of Clwyd Mind, service user and carer representatives, as well as a range of community groups and charities from throughout Conwy and Denbighshire. The occupational therapists from the unit lead the group, but the service user & carer rep on the group played a big part in pulling it all together. 

The BAT group organises community groups to facilitate therapeutic sessions jointly with staff as part of the patient therapeutic programme. These include shared reading delivered by the library service, taster sessions run by the Women’s Centre in Rhyl, massage sessions run by the Red Cross, therapy dog sessions supported by the Therapy Dogs Nationwide and courses run by Llandrillo College to commence in May of this year.

The project group also held two open events in July and November of last year to support patients once discharged back into the community. The project welcomed Conwy and Denbighshire based groups, clubs and organisations to the unit to showcase activities available to service users and their carers out in the community.

More than 24 groups, including Conwy Community Wellbeing Team, Men’s sheds, and Denbighshire Walking For Health, attended the event to provide information on how to sign up to their activities.

The aim was to showcase community activities to service users, as well as their families and carers. It has been really helpful, enabling people to continue pursuits which support their health and wellbeing. The two events were true networking and celebration events and have connected many people in the unit to groups in the community. I frequently hear from third sector colleagues who attended the events that they have since linked with people when they go home! 

Feedback following the open events:

'Everyone was really friendly and approachable.'

'I think all the organisers and volunteers have done an excellent job today.'

'Excellent day, really inclusive and positive. In line with the Social Services & Wellbeing (Wales) Act, partnership working and integration,' - someone from the Community Mental Health Team.

'Wonderful event bringing services together. Promoting wellbeing.'

We were really keen that people were aware of the things available AND they could meet a friendly face from the organisation and understand what to expect if approaching the organisation when they got home.

In Powys Mandy Pearce works as a Reablement Worker with Mid Powys Mind to help support people in transition from hospital back to the community. Mandy also works very closely with the statutory provider of health services, in this case, Powys Teaching Health Board, and other third sector groups.  We would love to hear what you think about initiatives like these in the comments box below.

Citizen Power, Active Participation

Blog by Freda Lacey, Powys Association of Voluntary Organisations (PAVO)

The Person in the Arena – Theodore Roosevelt    

"It is not the critic who counts; not the person who points out how the strong …stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the person who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends themselves in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if they fail, at least fails while daring greatly, so that their place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."



24th October 2014.  Left to right, back row;

Rhydian Parry, Neil Saunders, Kate Van Den Ende,

Steve Hails, Liz Hails, Phil Pashley, Meriel Richards,

Phil Moisson.  Front: Freda Lacey, Lotte McGregor,

Ali Lloyd-Jones, Michelle Willingham, Jill Dibling

On Thursday,  24th October, I gave the above quote, a personal favourite of mine (one which has boosted me many times during some of my darker days) to a group of twelve enthusiastic, devoted citizens of Powys, who came together for the day with me to discuss active participation on local and national Mental Health Partnership Boards. 

 

 

 

 

The Road Trip

This meeting was the culmination of a long road trip across Powys over the last few months, engaging with people in local groups, teams, towns and localities.  I gleefully sent out some photos to my family of my journey to work that first day of travel, captioned, “my road to work this morning”.  I feel incredibly lucky to live in a county and drive roads which take me to views like this in the work I do. 

My mission? 
To inform and encourage people to participate at our annual Stronger in Partnership conference, this year entitled, “Shaping Services Together”.  People would get to meet with Jacqui Dillon, a well known activist and public speaker on the de-medicalisation of mental health distress and chair of the “Hearing Voices Network”, actively participate in speaking up about the impact of the UK Welfare Reform (workshop video here) and meet with key decision makers locally and nationally to report on personal experiences (watch out for a subsequent Blog on this topic!). 


Welshpool Outreach - Ponthafren

They would also get to speak directly with members of the relatively new National Partnership Board driving the “Together for Mental Health” strategy and delivery plans across Wales.  People would also learn more about how to actively engage and participate in shaping mental health services (you can access their talk here), locally and through a newly forming National Forum for citizens in contact with mental health services across Wales.  


Llanidloes Outreach - Ponthafren

I combined visits to local mental health voluntary services/groups and statutory mental health staff/teams closely in contact with people who have been diagnosed with "mental illness". 

My journey took me to places such as Machynlleth and visits with Mind Aberystwyth’s “UsMach” and a local counseling services called “The Listening Point”.  To Llanidloes’ Mental Health Outreach Group, Welshpool Mental Health Resource Centre, both managed by Ponthafren Association.  
 

Older People's team, South Powys

Newtown’s Mental Health Resource Centre (managed by Ponthafren Association), Builth Wells Mental Health Outreach Group and Llandrindod Wells Resource Centre, through Mid Powys Mind, Brecon and District Mind’s (note new name), Mental Health Resource Centre.   Bryntirion’s multi-disciplinary team of social workers, community psychiatric nurses and team leaders in Welshpool, multi-disciplinary staff team at Ty Illtyd in Brecon, the older people’s multi-disciplinary staff team gathered at Bronllys Hospital and the multi-disciplinary staff team at The Larches in Ystradgynlais.

This event was also going to uniquely focus on “across all ages” and we actively worked with the Participation Team working with the Powys Youth Forum and Tros Gynnal, who provide Children’s Advocacy, to get their involvement.  Several young people came, with the support of these two local organisations and they worked with Theatr Clwyd on a workshop to put across their points/issues to the audience.  There was also quite a bit of audience participation as you can see in the picture here and below.

We had over 120 people registered for the event here in Powys which happened on September 19th and the momentum for people to get involved in shaping mental health services, both locally and nationally, has continued since then with great interest.  It feels as if a great shift is happening with people really wanting to become more actively involved, raising their voice, campaigning for the rights of individuals (and themselves) to be heard.  People are passionately wanting to help change the way services are delivered so that they have the services they need, when they need them.  It is interesting that this is strongly aligned with the Welsh Government’s drive to involve more citizens in public consultations, engagement and participation at all levels.  For a list of the most recent opportunities to get involved, please visit this page on our website.

This all brings us to last Thursday’s day at Gregynog Hall, where originally, fifteen people had put themselves forward as interested in coming together to discuss active participation and representation on the Powys local Mental Health Planning and Development Partnership and the National Forum. Unfortunately, three people were unable to attend on the day due to unforeseen reasons. 

The local partnership board is a requirement, as part of the strategy for Mental Health across Wales, and each of the seven health boards in Wales need to create such a partnership.  They are also required to have people in contact with services and those close to them as active members on these partnership boards.  There are no minimum or maximum numbers, but most Boards have over four people as active members.  In Powys, we have three people who can participate on the partnership at any one meeting.

There were six people who organically fell out of the day’s selection process, but three others who really wished to participate, but were unsure of their abilities and perhaps lacking in some confidence.  The group, as a whole, really wished to encourage and support these three people to be actively involved and so they wished me to see whether the three people participating on the local partnership could be pulled from a pool of nine people.  The remaining three people all wished to be very actively involved in supporting the local and national engagement process.  Nine people from Powys will actively be part of the National Forum that is forming and this will consist of over 50 people from across Wales.

Jo Mussen (right) Vice Chair Powys teaching Health Board & Jackie Newey, PAVO

The nine people are a good mixture of people who have varied and diverse experiences.

It will be one of the widest, most diverse groups of people to ever come together, with one common purpose.  This is to ensure that those in contact with or close to people who have experience of mental health services in Wales are valued as equals in shaping mental health services for the future, that they are consulted, valued, actively involved through meaningful dialogue, ensuring that this is not tokenistic.  This Forum will also choose the four people who will participate on the National Partnership Board.  Importantly, communication to and from the National Partnership Board on issues affecting people and progress on key areas of interest in terms of service development and action, needs to be whole-heartedly carried through this Forum, by this Forum to local networks, groups and citizens represented from communities across Wales.  In this way, a strong, inter-dependent link will exist between local citizenship and Welsh Government, in relation to mental health and well-being.

Community Mental Health Team, Brecon

The ongoing challenge remains how we actively engage, communicate and dialogue with the silent majority of people, whose voice may not yet have been heard and indeed, who do not wish to participate via membership of a forum or board, but who do want to actively contribute and be heard.  Further development of local groups, local mechanisms for ensuring active participation is facilitated and helping forge meaningful connections are next steps for the group who met at Gregynog, as is utilising the widest and most innovative means possible to engage with people. 

Along with supporting this group, my role requires me to be mindful of linking opportunities for involvement in services with people with particular interests or experiences.  Most recent examples of this include: linking an individual in Newtown with Department of Health, Expert Reference Group meetings in London, reviewing the Mental Health Code of Practice and we’ll ensure that we are involved when/if the Welsh Code of Practice is also reviewed, ensuring individuals who have experience of being detained by the police (in relation to mental health distress) are linked in with a two year research project headed by the University of Bangor into Police practice, linking people with the group overseeing the implementation of the Mental Health Measure (Act) across Wales and seeking to involve people in the formation of the Powys Psychological Therapies Management Committee.

Finally, I shared with the “Twelve” a poem which means a great deal to me.  It is called “To Risk” and you can view it here on our website.  It felt right to hand people this poem before they attend the first meeting of the Powys Mental Health Planning and Development Partnership in December and the National Forum in November.  It may help if you’ve never gotten involved in participating before. 

 
So, if you wish to join in, get actively involved and have particular interests or experience in different aspects of services that makes you think you can make a difference for others and/or for yourself, please email me at Freda.Lacey@pavo.org.uk or ring me on 01597 822191 for further information.

By Freda Lacey