For carers over in the London borough of Kingston. There are sessions aimed at unpaid carers which are informal and friendly. The sessions give practical ideas and tips, based on the latest scientific research to increase resilience, improve wellbeing and manage stress and anxiety levels better.
Please see poster below for more information or contact communitylearningkae@kingston.gov.uk
Hello fellow mental health carers. Have not blogged an update in a while regarding my carer forums. Probably due to being busy publishing my 3rd book on mental health carer poetry. More on that later. I have also been developing online courses aimed at mental health carers. I am now preparing to work on my 6th online course “caring for someone with a mental illness”.
Back to this blog update. This is an update from my monthly ethnic carer forum. A forum for those from ethnic backgrounds caring for someone with mental illness.
Speakers
Rev Dr Cameron Langlands – Head of Pastoral & Spiritual Care at South London & Maudsley
Carl Nando – Amenity Care update
Rubbia Ali – Black families involvement in new elearning.
Rev Dr Cameron Langlands – Head of Pastoral & Spiritual Care at South London & Maudsley
Did you know I also facilitate the West London NHS trust ethnic carers peer group? We recently had the Head of Pastoral care visit and engage with carers from the black community.
So it was great to have Rev Dr Cameron Langlands attend and engage with our community group. Dr Cameron looks after the chaplaincy service at South London and Maudsley. Dr Cameron takes care of service users who are inpatients and will often see people in community, but only if they are tied into the SLaM services. Dr Cameron would love to engage with more patients, but there are only three chaplains in the full time role. Plus they have four sites to cover, as well as some community settings.
They also have a part time Imam who works with them on a Tuesday. Plus a part time Deacon who works at ladywell unit over in Lewisham on Thursday.
Dr Cameron has been in the NHS now for just over 20 years in chaplaincy, and what they find particularly within mental health chaplaincy is that when people say they want a specific chaplain, often they don’t. Because they’re looking for is someone who is an appreciation as to where the patient is coming from. That would be who has the ability to sit and listen to them, especially on the difficult situation that they’re in. This is where the nursing staff are trained to do that, but unfortunately, they are often incredibly busy. So that allows those within the chaplaincy team to be able to augment the clinical team and do that.
The team are running a training program for transpersonal therapists who are in training. They focus on more spirituality based transpersonal side of things, and have to do 100 hours within psychiatric setting. So most of the work now has a chaplaincy volunteer as well. They can dovetail into the service. The other thing they do is that they can offer volunteers in the befriending service that run via the volunteer coordinator as well. So they tie in with people in community who have either been discharged from service but still want that link or are being looked after by their GP or their community mental health team.
Dr Cameron has also asked for a befriender in a new service that runs twice a year, the befriender service is now online, the service can also be accessed in person. The course is ran over a 10 week period and it covers all aspects of mental health.
Dr Cameron mentioned that In South London, they have managed to secure funding from the from NHS England, and have started a bereaved suicide service, which is aimed at those who have been bereaved by suicide, or those who have been witnesses to suicide or attempted suicide. In that team, they have got a bereavement manager, two support workers and a couple of counselors, and they are the only service in the UK to have two community champions employed in that service reaching out to people on non faith based basis.
QUESTIONS FROM CARERS
Can there be a conflict on spiritual conversion regarding a patient’s faith?
How is spirituality being used as a way to be inclusive and, and bring out these outcomes to be more favorable towards those ethnic communities using those services?
Is there a spiritual and pastoral policy? Is it inclusive of families and carers?
Carl Nando updates on AmenityCare update
Next was Carl Nando’s turn to update the carer forum on his project Amenity care, which looks to support carers with a package for the person suffering ill health. Carl talked about how Mental health is one of the key pillars for Amenity Care and its clients.
Carl talked about the struggles he had in the past supporting his parents and the racism they experienced. Carl feels this is an issue for today. Carl mentioned how tough it was to provide that care and how it inspired him to set up his own business that focuses on advocacy and support for those suffering ill health.
Carl thinks it is very important to have more black own mental health businesses tailored to the community, but there are struggles and getting access to business support is difficult. There were lots of questions from carer members on how Carl can raise the awareness of black mental health and at the same time run a business.
Rubbia Ali presents on Black families involvement in new elearning project
Lastly it was Rubbia’s turn to present to the ethnic carers group. She is a research worker at King’s College London. She spoke about her current study where they just received funding and they are now working on a project tailored to black families. It is called Black families involvement in E-learning. This is being led by two psychologists at King’s College London, by Dr Valentina Cardi and Dr Juliana Onwumere.
The study has two aims. Firstly, to understand the experiences and impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the carers of children and young people (6-24 years) from Black minority ethnic communities in the UK. The second aim is to explore with carers of children and young people from Black minority ethnic communities, the type of information they would find helpful to include in an online course that aims to offer carers skills to support children and young people with their mental health and wellbeing. The Be FINE study will employ a mixed methods design, using both online surveys and individual and group-based interviews.
The study has two parts; an online survey and focus groups. To participate, individuals have to be parents or carer of a young person from a Black racial minority and the child has to be aged between 6 – 24 years. We then ask that the participant fills out the online survey, this should take around half an hour. The participant will receive £15 amazon voucher for participating. Following this, the participant will have the chance to also sign up to the focus groups.
This concludes the brief update for April – phew! I am so far behind!!
Carer Activism : My latest online course for carers. This one is on applying activism for carers who struggle with engagement from health and social care. Only £2 via paypal.
Welcome to my March 2022 update of our SW London mental health carers forum. The group is a hybrid group of my other forums. Usually my carer forums focus on engagement and updates, but this one sometimes acts as a peer and network group for those caring for someone with mental illness.
Speakers for March 2022
Karen Persaud – SWLSTG – Carers, friends and family involvement coordinator
Gary Baker – Carers Support Worker – Richmond Mind
Antonia Buamah – Patient peer support – EMHIP– Ethnicity and Mental Health Improvement Project.
Karen from South West London & St George Presents
Karen who sometimes attends and engages with our group updated us on carer developments at the local SW London mental health trust. Karen spoke about the new carers peer support worker Zoe Hannah. The new role will be running for one year and should hopefully continue onwards.
The trust is actually really committed to pushing forward the lived experience workforce as part of their overall service delivery. This is where they have four services user peer support workers in posts. SWLSTG are also currently reviewing the trust’s carers strategy, which is quite outdated.
The new strategy will also be reflecting on the need for the trust to do more around supporting carers through their carers recovery journey, because carers go through a recovery alongside supporting loved ones through their own recovery journey. This means it is trying to balancing out wellbeing needs.
The next update for SWLSTG is there new recovery college course, which is being facilitated by Kingston adults education, college. The course has been adapted for wellbeing techniques for carers, families and friends. The course should be running for 10 weeks. Karen also updated briefly on the friends, families and carers group incase new members of our forum are interested in trust involvement.
Last updates from Karen was on the carer awareness training for staff, especially on induction for staff. This would involve carer communication skills plus carer involvement in the planning and discharge.
Gary Baker – Carers Support Worker – Richmond Mindpresents
Gary fed back on how Ricmond Mind works closely with Richmond carers regarding mental health carers. Carers can be self refered or be referred to by another professional. Once they received that referral, Richmond Mind will contact the carer. From there the carer will be given access to support and workshops.
Gary mentioned that quite a few people tend not to like the term carer and tend to prefer being called a client or the person’s relative.
Responses from carer members.
Are services at Richmond could be offered in Merton or Kingston? (quite a few members asked about the services) My question was on engagement from SWLSTG, I wondered if Richmond Mind staff have been invited to meetings. Gary talked at length regarding carer champion meetings. The next question I asked for engagement from community mental health teams. This is where Gary mentioned that there was not enough.
Antonia presents on the Ethnicity and Mental Health Improvement Project (EMHIP)
Antonia talked about how the Ethnicity and Mental Health Improvement Project (EMHIP) is an attempt to reduce inequalities in access, experience and outcome of mental health care in South West London (Wandsworth & Tooting, Battersea locality). It was developed through the leadership and activism of leaders within the African, African Caribbean, and Asian communities.
The EMHIP advocates for a practical, locally based service improvement programme, co-designed with service users and local Black and Asian communities, based on established evidence, building on existing community led, co-produced projects.
In the UK, people from the Black and Asian community are being denied equal and compassionate mental health care.
They more likely to be brought to and kept in without their consent.
They are more likely to access mental health services through the police and criminal justice systems. find themselves unwell and back again, once released, particularly men
be forcibly restrained and given more than the recommended amount of medication.
The fence of mental heath for the Black and Asian community has been broken for several generations and the many promises of repair (partial or full) has not materialised to date.
We have delved deep, hence, our toolkit EMHIP– Ethnicity and Mental Health Improvement Project.
Antonia pointed out that as a community we’ve recognised that our broken fence must be repaired once and for all and have forged collaborations and partnership with many friends
South West London CCG (CCGs are now replaced to Integrated Care Boards) South West London and St. George’s Mental Health NHS Trust Local context of Black and Asian – voluntary, faith and community groups
This can be organized via the non-profit Wandsworth Community Empowerment Network (WCEN)
The Hub offers our guests, visitors and other attendees a communal safe place to sit down, relax and have a conversation in a hospitable environment.
Service/Sessions provided:
¨ Physical Health and Wellbeing checks ¨ Citizen Advice Bureau/Housing First Aid ¨ Pastoral Systemic Therapy ¨ Mental Health and Wellbeing Out-patients type clinics ¨ Explore training or employment opportunities ¨ Promote on-going recovery ¨ Social life wellbeing ¨ Effective “active sign-posting” to the supportive local services or agencies
This was a brief update for my SW London mental health carers peer group. For the month of July SW London NHS will be engaging our group regarding SW London’s mental health strategy. I for one will hope it will include families and carers.
Hello fellow unpaid carers. Welcome to a brief update of my South West London mental health carers forum. I am very behind on my updates because I have been busy working on my new poetry book on carer experiences. I am also developing online courses for carers. So if you want a bit of education, try some of my courses out.
Going back to my SW London carers forum. This one is for April and the following speaker from Hull University was
Dr David Barrett – Empathy and Nurse Education.
Dr David presents to the SW London carers forum
Dr David Barrett from the Department of Paramedical, Perioperative and Advanced Practice at Hull University wrote a paper on “Effectiveness of empathy education for undergraduate nursing students”.
David started out describing to the group on what is empathy. David felt that we would have our own thoughts on the term and what it means to us and why it’s important. David felt that it’s a tricky one, because there’s lots of people who have lots of different ideas on exactly what it is.
Dr David felt that empathy is about being aware of, and understanding what somebody else is feeling. Plus empathy is being able to demonstrate to them, that understanding as well. This mean’t that empathy awareness is not just not just internalising, but also demonstrating to the person that you understand how they’re feeling. Empathy is using that willingness to respond appropriately to those needs. David mentioned about a term “walking in someone else’s shoes, or it’s someone else’s pain”. David felt it was that as a concept.
There seems to be a problem on just how far you can take it as possible to understand what somebody else needs are? This is because everybody is an individual, we’ve all got our own backgrounds or experiences, our own ways of dealing with things. So whether it’s truly possible to ever understand what somebody else is feeling, He thinks it is a discussion that the group could looking into afterwards.
The reason why empathy is so important is that in an health care setting, it can provide some important benefits for people that nurses and other health care providers care for. There is good research that if somebody is empathetic as a health care provider, then the person they provide care for is likely to have a better experience might see higher levels of service user satisfaction.
If there is a healthcare team is demonstrating empathy, and it can, for example, reduce infection rates, improve what you’re feeling yourself, it can even reduce other complications, e.g. diabetes and other things. So in the end we can see improved physical health outcomes. Dr David stated that most importantly you can also see improvements in mental health and well being. This is where you can see lower rates of depression related distress or anxiety. It is also worth mentioning that improved mental health can also sometimes be seen in the healthcare professionals themselves.
Dr David Barrett started talk about how nurses were trained in Empathy at the course and on the importance of families and carers being involved education from an authentic perspective.
Just to note, I missed a month by Jumping to April, but will add the blog for my SW London carer peer group for March later on.
You can get hold of Dr David’s paper from the link below.
Hello fellow carers. University Hospital Lewisham have released a new Survey. The survey is specifically designed for people who have received in-patient care at NHS University Hospital Lewisham within the last 12 months. The survey can also be completed by carers of patients. The survey asks about your experience of the process of being discharged from hospital, and the first few weeks after coming home from hospital.
You can click on the link below to access the survey
Hello fellow carers. A quick update from my past carer forums. This is the April update of my Joint Southwark and Lambeth mental health carers forum.
Speakers for this forum were
Naomi Good – Engagement from Guys & St Thomas NHS FT
Rachel Braverman – Expert by experience at Royal College of Psychiatrists
Just a quick note, I cannot remember if Rachel managed to attend this forum. I think should could not make it and attended my south west London carers group at a later date.
It was however good that Naomi engaged with carers who look after someone with a mental illness. The thing is that patients also use physical health services. So it was important to get stakeholder engagement from Guys & St Thomas hospitals.
Naomi Good Presents to the forum.
I know Naomi very well when she used to work at NSUN, this being the National Service User Network. Naomi did a lot for developing the 4PI involvement standards at mental health NHS trusts. These standards are still very much in use today, although there still needs to be a lot of work done.
Naomi is now the stakeholder engagement at GSTT and is also a carer herself and spoke on the following.
Joint Programme for Carers and Patients in Covid Recovery
Surgical Strategy – delivery workshops and steering group
Apollo Programme – Electronic Health Care Record
Carers Strategy – development
Naomi started by presenting the Joint Program for Carers and Patients.
Basically the programme aims to make sure the views of patients, carers and the public help with future service changes during the pandemic especially those who have been most affected by the pandemic. GSTT want to continue to improve and provide the very best care to patients, especially to those who are:-
Waiting for treatment Virtual access to care Struggling with Long COVID
There actually were some workshops back in April and May which Naomi presented on the surgical strategy
The Apollo Programme
The Apollo Programme
Naomi then spoke about how Apollo will be the most ambitious programme of transformation they have undertaken. GSTT will be replacing many of the systems (both digital and paper). GSTT currently use with a single, integrated and comprehensive source of information across Guys and St Thomas’ (including Royal Brompton and Harefield) and Kings College Hospital Trusts. Epic is a US-based provider of electronic health records (EHR). It is used in some of the best hospitals around the world including the majority of top-ranked US hospitals, and UK trust’s such as Great Ormand Street and Cambridge.
GSTT Carer Strategy
I asked a quick question regarding GSTT’s carer’s strategy in which Naomi responded they do have one. The GSTT carer’s strategy is embedded within each of the different strategies, but there is an effort in refreshing that and making sure it is available across the trust, which is seen as priority area.
GSTT involvement
Naomi talked about how others could have the opportunity to make a huge impact to the care of patients and the experience of carers across Guy’s and St Thomas’ and King’s College London. During the programme to date, the carer’s voice has been integral to shaping how they will support carer’s to access care on their loved ones behalf’s. In future phases of the programme, patients and carers will help GSTT to user test the patient-facing applications, and design their patient communications and training programmes.
• Reimbursement of time spent in workshops and meetings in line with Trust policy • Reimbursement of travel expenses, childcare costs, and carer costs • Access to various IT training opportunities • Foundation Trust Membership (for those 18 years of over). • Job references
Here are two more poems from my upcoming book “The Poetry book of mental health caring”.
The first poem focuses on wellbeing for carers who are caring for someone suffering mental illness. To be fair it does not actually have to be mental illness, but the main point is the person is thrown into becoming a carer.
The next poem is more psychological. The poem called “The Mirror” asks the carer to reflection on their identity, especially when the carer is judgemental about themselves. I certainly was very judgemental about trying to provide unpaid care and at times I still am critical.
A Caring Mind 