Welcome to the February update of the Lewisham BME mental health carers forum. I know the title of the group in lewisham is very long, but it does cover the aspects of Black Minority Ethnic and mental health.

Out of the 4 carer forums I chair in South London, this one is a mix of service users and carers. The forum started last year, so it is fairly new. The older forum which is the Lewisham Carers MH forum has been running close to 2 years.

On the february update, we were joined by South London and Maudsley’s Patient and Public involvement lead Alice Glover. I have been on many of Alice’s involvement groups for some years, so it was great to get support from her in which she contributed to the forum. Her task for the february forum was on how can the South London trust support this particular forum.

We all decided that perhaps each month would have a representative from the trust to speak to the forum and engage with matters arising or even compliments. There was some frank discussion on that day as a majority of experiences were about the police. Other important discussions related to medication, education about mental health, difficult experiences and who would engage with the forum in future.

Other interesting discussions were on the courses available at the SLaM recovery college and the new Black Thrive intiative event, which will take place on the 14th of March. See link for more details.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/thrive-ldn-lewisham-community-workshop-tickets-42455852598?aff=es2

The involvement lead presented on getting involved with the trust, which one of the members was very interested in doing. Other leaflets and cards were handed out about trust, including membership which gives patients, staff and carers a more powerful voice regarding the direction of the trust.

The forum slightly over ran, but in the end a lot of progress was made and we all appreciated Alice engaging with the BME forum.