Mental Health

Everyone’s experience of mental health problems is different and services need to be person-focused rather than process-driven; therefore our work with organisations concentrates on helping transform services to achieve this.

We take the same values-based approach to our work in mental health as we do across all other areas. We believe timely access to care and support that is person-centred helps people to live well. We are committed to the principles of recovery, where people can build a meaningful and satisfying life whether or not they have ongoing or recurring mental health problems. The links between personalisation and recovery are clear and have been embedded in our programme by our recent partnership work with ImROC.

We know that the social determinants of health have a huge role to play in preventing mental illness, avoiding crisis and promoting recovery. So we also focus on promoting health and wellbeing, access to housing, employment and social inclusion. These are the areas people tell us they need to see change. The voice of the person with lived experience is heard and central to all the work we do. Coproduction is one of our key strengths.

Our work is evidence-based, and informed by the work of our own Research and Evaluation Team. We take a pragmatic approach to find out what works, for whom and in what circumstances. We favour these approaches because the outcomes of initiatives may be long-term, complex and influenced by a range of external variables for which it is not always possible to control.

The guiding principles of the Five Year Forward View for Mental Health are clear. Local areas are expected to work together with people with lived experience and their families and carers to deliver the improvements that are wanted and needed. We help organisations to make sure this happens.

Coproduction is a proven method of ensuring that everyone’s voice is heard and given equal value in the design and delivery of local services. We work with partners across an area, including clinical teams, local authority representatives and people with lived experience to design new ways of providing support that are person-centred and evidence-based.

We help organisations sense-check their existing approaches as well as identify areas needing change. We have built on our research in employment support and can offer realistic evaluation to address the questions of what works best, for whom and in what situation.