A massive thank you from MHAG to all of the people who attended our meeting on Tuesday (December 2) which was aimed at informing residents and organisations about what we do but more specifically around letting people know about the mentoring project.

The pilot launched almost six months ago now – co-ordinated by Neil Ordish of Headgym, Beth Haining of Global Harmony, Elaine Grant from Early Help and Mentor Link’s Andrea Maddocks. The aim is to provide long-term support for people who may have accessed statutory services but need extra support once that NHS input has come to an end. It’s a long-recognised problem mental health isn’t fixable in six weeks – some people may need months or even years to get back to a point where they’re feeling more positive about their life.

Currently the mentoring project helps 20 people – each of them get a slot once a fortnight either over the phone, on Skype or face to face with mentors Neil and Beth – and it’s all goals-focused so each time they are working towards achieving a measurable goal. It’s been fantastically successful and the feedback the team are getting is great – people really making changes in their lives due to the input of Beth and Neil who are supported with all the management of the project by Elaine and Andrea.

The team are now putting together funding bids to enable the project to continue long-term and fingers crossed it’ll be something we see happening in Redditch for a long time to come!

Once again, thanks to all who attended on Tuesday – getting over 40 people including representatives from the police, borough council, health and care trust and many other organisations to come together on a cold evening in December is great and is testament to the real focus on mental health which is being led from the ground upward.

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Rebecca Blake reports on mental health in Redditch. 

“People are regularly telling me that mental health services are getting worse.  This cannot continue. It’s costing lives, reducing quality of life and the money spent on the consequences must be shifted towards prevention.

Let’s face it, there has never been a golden age for mental health services.  Maybe that’s because if you have mental illness it’s a challenge to get through the day, let alone fight the system.

Services are being cut, in-patient beds have been reduced and tragically, suicide has increased significantly according to the latest ONS figures. I asked Luciana Berger MP, Shadow Minister for Public Health to come to Redditch to see how we are fighting for improved services and mental wellbeing while providing mental health support and tackling stigma. Luciana met with the Redditch Mental Health Support Group and listened to their concerns about the drop in having been cut and how much they valued coming to the weekly group set up by volunteer Mary Jones eighteen months ago.

Neil Ordish, member of Redditch Mental Health Action Group and lead on a new mentoring project funded by the CCG, discussed the importance of long term support being available for people having had mental illness and who have come to the end of their therapy.  Usually the individual would be left to essentially get on with it and if something goes wrong they then have to battle to get back into the system and face lengthy delays, often resulting in a deterioration in their health.  Yet regular, sustained, low level support can break the endless cycle that so many face. 

Luciana explained that a Labour Government would bring together mental, social and physical care to improve services for people and bring collective responsibility for the health of patients.  And for the first time mental illness would be treated on par with physical illness.

I have seen the impact of unfair government policies over the last four years on the mental health of people in Redditch.  People stressed out or struggling with depression going into rent arrears for the first time thanks to this government’s bedroom tax.  Labour has pledged to cut this unfair tax which will ease the pressure put upon people who cannot downsize because there aren’t enough smaller properties for them.

Mental health can be improved and must be improved because mental ill health affects the whole of society directly and indirectly.  The time to act is now”. 

If you are interested in learning more about the Redditch Mental Health Action Group email redditchmhag@gmail.com

See also article in Redditch Standard

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LONG-TERM support for people with mental health issues is on offer as part of a pioneering project.

But funding is needed to secure the scheme for the future and help expand the number of residents who can be offered help.

The mentoring project was the brainchild of Headgym counsellor Neil Ordish and Elaine Grant, Early Help funding and family learning development co-ordinator, both members of the Redditch Mental Health Action Group.

They attracted the support of Andrea Maddocks, chief executive of Mentorlink which now administrates the scheme, and Global Harmony life coach Beth Haining, who has been leading the mentoring along with Neil, as well as The Space in Winyates and Bromford who provide rooms for the mentoring to take place in.

They are currently halfway through a six-month pilot, with ten residents being given weekly sessions either face-to-face, over the phone or through internet video calling programme Skype thanks to funding from the Redditch and Bromsgrove Clinical Commissioning Group. A further ten people are now being enrolled on the pilot while organisers search for long-term funding.

Mr Ordish said: “The service came about from going to the first MHAG meeting and seeing the amount of confusion, tension and anger in the room. I came out of it thinking there must be something which can be done here.

“A lot of people seem to be frustrated with getting the right sort of support or knowing where to go for support. I spoke to a lot of people who I work with through Headgym and they said they needed some sort of long-term support and that’s why it started.”

Positive results are already being seen, with some people returning to work after being unemployed for years while others are overcoming addictions, tackling problems and beginning to approach different areas of their lives in a more positive way.

“We need more funding to enable this proven mechanism to work long-term. All the options currently on offer are short-term and quite often people find themselves back in the same place once that intervention has finished, while some people are unable to get any support at all.” Mr Ordish added.

“The funding we attract will be used to try and ensure people don’t re-enter the system so it’s actually saving money in the long term and will get people out of the doctor’s waiting room.”

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