CHS Mental Health Strategy Deborah Latham Head of Community Support Services

People experiencing mental ill health  1 in 4 people in their life time  1 in 6 at any one time  1 in 10 children (of 5-16 years)  Nearly half of all ill health is mental  The other half is physical  People with mental illness die on average 20 years younger than other people  Stigma, discrimination, isolated, alone  “Mental health is everyone’s business”

Definitions  Mental illness diagnosed medically  Undiagnosed mental health issues  General anxiety, stress, depression  Many CHS customers are not ‘formally’ recognised as having mental illness, but do have issues and needs  We won’t necessarily ever know exactly  We should be working in a way that promotes mental wellbeing

Mental Health Strategy - Why  Better meet people’s needs, better outcomes  A lot of mental health issues – so address  Address young people’s emerging ill health  Keep people engaged, not let them down  Prevention of crises, ASB, evictions, arrears  Better for our local communities  Manage risks more effectively – at all levels  Makes all round business sense, added value  Increase our MH expertise, win more bids

Customer feedback  People like it when staff listen and act  People hugely appreciate supportive staff  Supportiveness makes a massive difference to people’s sense of wellbeing  Supportiveness is essential to enable people to cope with difficulties  People feel anxious and stressed if staff to not talk with them and only send letters

MH Strategy objectives 1-3 1: Further integrate best practice principles into existing service delivery and improve the quality of our mental health support in our care and support services. 2: Support all customers with common mental health problems, including in our General Needs Housing and Community Investment Services, to access appropriate services and treatment. 3: Promote community resilience and help to prevent illness by promoting mental wellbeing and improving people’s understanding of mental health.

Strategy Objectives 4-6 4: Develop the mental health skills and capabilities of our workforce 5: Promote positive mental health and mental wellbeing in the workplace at CHS 6: Develop our offer and extend our mental health services to new partners in Cambridgeshire and the NHS

Actions….  Staff trained, more skilled and confident  Build on existing hubs of expertise  MH Floating support into General Needs  Improve access and agree referral pathways for customers to external mental health support  Look to develop a Peer Support programme for customers – informal support is ‘resource light’  Improve data collection and identification of mental health support needs, to enable better resource targeting  Wellbeing promotion through activities

… Actions  Work based on Life Course Approach, Recovery Principles and the promotion of Wellbeing  Develop our Psychologically Informed approach in service delivery  Cultivate greater understanding of mental health needs amongst customers, and encourage neighbourly understanding, acceptance and support in communities for people with MH needs  Identify how CHS services can adapt/form to meet health commissioners’ needs  Mindful Employer to better support staff

‘Psychologically informed’ (PI)  Ways of working informed by psychological insight, tools and models  Staff are equipped with insight into the psychology behind behaviours and a range of tools (from therapeutic and psychological theories) to use in their attempts to positively address each situation

PI also means  Working with the challenging behaviour  ‘Elastic tolerance’, tackle issues creatively and flexibly, address behaviour… not rejecting  ‘Reflective practice’ in staff teams  Analysing actions to learn from incidents and improve effectiveness of response to each service user

PI approach is followed to:  Enable people to make changes in life, e.g. behaviours/emotions, reducing drug and alcohol use, establishing/maintaining relationships, feeling less depressed or fearful, by removing psychological barriers  Make a difference – e.g. reduced chaotic behaviour, evictions or hospital admissions; increased engagement with staff, less abandonment/evictions  Achieve movement towards aspirations

Conclusion  The Strategy will support staff to work better to help:  Prevent unnecessary worsening of illness  Promote mental health  Promote feeling of wellbeing  Please support the Strategy  Anyone who would like to be involved in taking forward actions to promote wellbeing is very welcome – please tell Deborah!