Better Mental Health for All event brings all partners together to  focus on future key priorities

One hundred partners from across the voluntary sector, NHS and local authorities came together this week (Tuesday 15 October) to focus on future key priorities as part of the Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland (LLR) mental health collaborative; The Better Mental Health for All Partnership Network.

The conference was focused on driving forward three key areas of mental health transformation taking place across LLR: children and young people’s mental health, personality difficulties and suicide prevention. 

The event was led by the voluntary and community sector (VCS) members of the Network who selected the topics that they wanted to address.

Khudeja Amer-Sharif, CEO of the Shama Women’s Centre, co-compere of the event and a member of the VCS Steering Group behind its planning, said: “I’d like to thank everyone for making the event such a success. The energy in the room was so visible and the topics presented so well. The fact that this was an event that was co-produced with VCS, the Integrated Care Board (ICB), Public Health and Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust (LPT) is such a positive step forward.

“We had open conversations between VCS partners, commissioners, social prescribers, policy leads and neighbourhood teams which is the right approach when identifying the best solutions for improving mental health services and support.”

Paul Molyneux, from the Samaritans added: ” It was really empowering and inspiring to be part of the Network today; a group of people that want to work actively to make a positive difference. We discussed three key topics, including suicide prevention which is an area that is at the heart of the work we do as Samaritans. On my table we discussed the need to develop the confidence to start talking about suicide amongst young adults in particular. We are facing a tsunami of mental health challenges that will need an integrative approach and the ability to have difficult but ultimately rewarding discussions may help young people feel they are not alone in facing difficulty in their lives.” 

The Network is made up of more than 100 VCS organisations working alongside the NHS, education and the local authorities to bring about major improvements across mental health. The focus of the work is on earlier intervention and prevention so that if people start to feel unwell or unable to cope, they get the support and treatment much more quickly and from the right services.

Justin Hammond, the lead commissioner for mental health at the ICB said: “We can only achieve the goals of Better Mental Health for All by working with all partners in our communities. The work that we do as a network ensures that we are listening to and working with people who know their local communities. As commissioners of mental health services, we can then test and develop our work with partners and make it the very best for our population.”

“I would encourage any VCS organisations that aren’t already part of the Network to get in touch with us and help us to progress these key topics of work.”

Rob Melling, LPT’s Mental Health Improvement and Transformation Lead said: “We are now directing more of our mental health funding to our VCS partners, so it only stands to reason that our design and planning of schemes is done in partnership. We will be taking all the findings from today to turn them into actions with partners.

“We also realised that there is an increased load placed upon the VCS workforce as they undertake that vital local support role. We used some of today’s event to examine the ways that people get that support, be it from themselves, families, managers or external providers and how to identify as early as possible when they need that support. The Framework that we launched today will be developed with partners.

The groups will come together over the coming months to focus on the different priorities and turn ideas into action.