Welcome to the latest update from the lambeth mental health carers forum. The Lambeth mental health carers forum seeks to engage and involve carers who provide care and support to those with mental health needs. When I say mental health carers I am talking about those who are unpaid, I am not talking about care workers.

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Here is the update from the Lambeth mental health carers forum for August.

The forum runs every last Thursday of the month. The forum is aimed at unpaid carers who are supporting someone suffering from mental ill health. The forum gives a chance for carers to discuss strategy, become empowered and engage with services.

The forum helps bring involvement out into the community, we also seek to network with other carers and track what is happening to carers welfare in the borough of Lambeth.

I had a bit of a break this month from charing because we had two new chairs for the August form.

For the month of August, We were lucky to have liason Staff member Tim Allen from SLaM presenting on caring for someone with depression. Tim also told us more about his role and how their team engages with those suffering from mental health crisis.

It was interesting hearing about the inspirations and challenges the mental health team were going through. Tim had a lot of knowledge to pass on and I’m sure the group had benefited from his wisdom.

For the second guest invite, Victoria Cabral from Black Thrive replaced Denis O’Rourke from the CCG, as Denis cannot attend this month but will attend a future forum instead. Victoria mentioned several reasons why ‘Black Thrive’ are active in the borough of Lambeth.

Here are some of the reasons below

– There is a high rate of black people using the mental health system in Lambeth

– The death of Sean Riggs has shocked the community in Lambeth and things have to change.

– Due to the High representation of black people using the mental health system, there also seems to be a lack of black people taking advantage of mental health services at an earlier stage.

– We need more involvement for black people to be helping to shape mental health services rather than just being the recipient of Health Services.

You can find out more information from their website below.

https://www.blackthrive.org.uk/

There were other things discussed, like trying to keep slam staff motivated and making sure SLaM keep good staff at the NHS Trust.

We also discussed carer experiences at Lambeth Hospital, plus how the trust should be trying to work within the principles of the Triangle of care. A good part of the forum looked into trying to care for someone who does not want to engage with mental health services, which many unpaid carers can experience.

The problems of lack of staff and lack of services or end up putting pressures on families and carers, it was mentioned that it is vitally important carers get a voice and speak up about their difficult role.