Mental Health Services

Providing Trauma-informed Support for Young People with Multiple Disadvantages

Gavin Barker is the Service Manager of the Specialist ‘Changing Futures’ Programme team at Westminster City Council. He discusses the trauma-informed compassion-focussed service Westminster have in place to support young people with multiple disadvantages and how the service prevents them from falling through gaps in provision.

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Working with Service Users to Develop Follow Up Programmes After a Mental Health Crisis

Demand for crisis mental health services has increased by a third since before the pandemic and doubled since 2017. In this video, Owen Salem, Operational Support Officer at Youth Fed discusses how organisations need to work collaboratively with NHS Trusts and service users to understand the early signs of crises and to develop coping strategies once they are discharged.

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High Suicide Rates among Neurodiverse Individuals: Why it matters and what can be done about it

Autistic people make up approximately 1% of the population but 11% of suicides. We heard from David Stocks, a Suicide Prevention Community Worker at Black Country Healthcare NHS Trust about the high suicide rates in neurodivergent individuals and what NHS Trusts can do to improve the mental health support in place to help these individuals.

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In conversation: Tackling Alcohol Addiction and Discovering the Impacts of Alcohol-Related Brain Damage (ARBD) 

In 2020, alcohol-specific deaths in the UK increased by 19.6% compared to the previous year. We heard from Consultant Addiction Psychiatrist Dr Julia Lewis about how authorities can work better to support those who misuse substances.

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Analysis of all-cause Mortality in the Substance Misuse Treatment Population Deaths January 2012 to August 2020

In this article, Martin Smith, Recovery Lead for Substance Misuse Services at Derbyshire Healthcare Foundation Trust, shares his analysis of mortality rates in the substance misuse treatment population between January 2012 and August 2020.

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Suicide Prevention: Panel Discussion: Developing Suicide Prevention Strategies for Marginalised Groups

Research shows that marginalised people are at greater risk of suicide than other groups. In this panel discussion, we welcomed Natalie Creary from Black Thrive, Mo Wiltshire from Stonewall, and Helen Jones from MindOut who discussed how to develop suicide prevention strategies for marginalised groups.

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Suicide Prevention: Speak Their Name: Supporting Families Bereaved by Suicide

Speak Their Name: The Greater Manchester Suicide Memorial Quilt, was a project started by the Greater Manchester Health & Social Care Partnership for World Suicide Prevention Day 2020. We heard more about the project from Adele Owen QPM the Greater Manchester Suicide Prevention Programme Manager at the Greater Manchester Health & Social Care Partnership.

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Suicide Prevention: Revising National Suicide Prevention Strategies in Response to Covid-19

The Government is reforming suicide prevention strategies, due to the detrimental impact that the pandemic has had on mental health. We heard from Nadine Dories MP, former Minister for Patient Safety, Suicide Prevention and Mental Health, about how the Government is revising national suicide prevention strategies.

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Including Emotional Support in Weight Management Services

Weight Management Services are a big part of the NHS Get Better Strategy. However, they only address the metric weight of a patient. Emotional support is needed to help the patient understand the potential underlying reasons for their situation. Only through a joint emotional and physical approach to weight management can patients’ be supported to make healthier decisions.

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Engaging with Rough Sleepers to Improve Uptake of Drug and Alcohol Support

Every area has a distinct homeless cohort, and blanket policies are not the answer. Councillor Trish Hardy of Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council explains that treating each area as unique and taking the time to learn the intricacies of the rough sleeping population is vital to helping individuals.

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Delivering Evidence-Based Approaches to Tackling Drug and Substance Misuse

It is argued that the approach to drug addiction taken in the UK for the past 30 years has been a failure. Crispin Blunt MP, co-Chair of the APPG for Drug Policy Reform, explores the example of Portugal and how the UK can bring its policies in line with the overwhelming bulk of new evidence.

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Providing Culturally Competent Mental Health Support

Multiple studies have highlighted health inequalities which disproportionately affect Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) communities. Issues have been identified across the entire lifespan, from increased dental disease in childhood, poor experiences for black women using maternity services, to low numbers of elderly black people using mental health services. This case study will highlight the work CAHN are carrying out to identify structural and systemic barriers, and how they continued to deliver their services throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.

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