Southwark Mental Health Carers Forum August 2017

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This is a update from the new Southwark Mental Health Carers forum for July. The Southwark Mental Health Carers forum took place on August the 31st over at Southwark Carers. Yes, the forum has moved from the Maudsely hospital to down the road where Southwark Carers is based.

This is the Second mental health carers forum to take place for Southwark and we had some interest carers attend this forum who also attended the carers support group. Since the forum was fairly new, I presented on updates which occurred the previous month, that being July.

 

To see the video of the forum report, click below

We are looking to run the forum every last Friday of the month. I presented what the forum is about, regarding that

  • It can be difficult for Carers in Southwark have an idea on Mental Health services and influencing them.
  • There has not been a Mental Health forum for some years, although there are Mental Health carer support groups.
  • Mental Health carers need some empowerment in their role.
  • Services have suffered from cuts, carers need to act in order to support everyone.

Mental Health Foundation are working to develop a series of pilot programmes on with The aim is to improve mental health wellbeing for all.

Mental Health and Wellbeing – Strategy patient engagement event where Southwark Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and Southwark Council wish to improve mental health and wellbeing across the borough

Plus talking about the upcoming CarersUK AGM and the South London & Maudsley AGM.

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Next we had a presentation from Ana who is the co-chair of the forum about her involvement at South London & Maudsley. We also discussed the importance of attending carers support groups

Lastly, Carer support worker Lillian spoke about the definition of a carer.

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The next Southwark MH Carers forum will be on 29th of September.

Lewisham Mental Health Carers forum August 2017

Here is the update for the Lewisham Mental Health Carers forum for August 2017. This is one of the older mental health carer forums in south London, the carers forum has been running for more than a year. Of course, When I say “Mental Health Carer”, I mean someone who is caring unpaid for a relative, friend or neighbour suffering from some form of mental illness.

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The Care Act 2014

care-act-2014Welcome to another blog post. This time I want to focus on the Care Act. The Care Act 2014 is a major piece of legislation to put unpaid carers wellbeing as a priority. Carers have faced hardship and lack of identification regarding their needs for a long time.

When I talk of unpaid carers, I am talking about those who are caring for a loved one, relative, close friend or even neighbour. The Care Act 2014 heavily focuses on those who are WILLING to care and tries to avoid the casual carer. Unpaid carers go through so much and there are unfortunately still major problems with the Care Act.

The main focus for the Care Act is that

– Carers are entitled to a carer assessment
– Puts carers on an equal footing with the cared for
– Increases identification of the carer needing support

If you have the time to watch the video I have made explaning some of the basic parts of the Care Act 2014, then please do so by clicking on the video below.

The video covers the following

  • The main focus for the Care Act.
  • What carers need support on.
  • Problems with the care act.
  • What you or your family can do regarding carer assessments.
  • Local Authorities responsibilities.
  • How carer needs are provided.
  • What happens if you refuses an assessment?
  • Care and support plans.
  • Safeguarding.
  • Independent advocacy.

Although I mention that the Local Authorities have responsibilites, so do health boards, mental health trusts, housing officers, social workers, assessors and so on.

The Care Act can be a major force for carers like myself up and down the country, but it is only as good if carers or carer advocates do not know their rights. There are those who will take every chance they can get to ignore the Care Act and misuse their powers to prey on the vulnerable and when I mean vulnerable, it is not just the carer alone, but also the cared for. Still not every carer is an angel and there are safeguarding issues in some families, but as it stands the Care Act looks to prevent such crisis before they happen.

Top 100 psychotherapies

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Welcome back. I have always mentioned to fellow unpaid carers who care for someone using mental health services to have an interest in psychology. In order to help develop an interest I have spent some months producing the video below.

This video lists and describes over 100 different forms of psychotherapies. Most mental health carers actually may have come into contact with at least 3 or 4 types of therapy. One being CBT, the other could be family counselling sessions and the most common would be group therapy, especially if attending a carer’s group. It is important carers have access to a therapeutic setting and are not treated as information retainers.

Carers often have to go through difficult and trumatic incidents and giving a carer a leaflet and telling them to get on with it is a lazy way of doing psychotherapy. Anyway, I am getting off my soap box and hope the video helps raise some interest of the vast world of psychology.

The video covers many therapies from Interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT), Drama therapy and Art therapy all the way to CBT and DBT. I would have continued on with the video and done a list of 200 psychotheraphies, but this has taken a lot of time and I felt I should just get on and release the video already.

Hope you enjoy!!

Tips from mental health survivor on caring

coverWelcome everyone and I am hoping you have had a good weekend. Today’s topic is another collaboration. This collaboration is with Alex from her Youtube channel “The truth about mental illness”. We decided to present on the importance of caring for someone suffering mental ill health.

There are situations where those with lived experience do not get support from a close relative or carer. There are those who feel carers are not essential. Each situation is complex and there is not often a right answer, but if someone suffering mental ill heath can get support from a carer (e.g. someone in the family or friend), then the outcomes usually tend to be better.

Living with mental illness can be challenging enough and having to go through mental ill health by oneself can be overwhelming. So I was glad to hear that Alex who is a mental health survivor wanted to present on how her mother provided support for her.

Alex promotes mental health experiences and well-being off her Youtube channel, it is worth a look to get her views, but before you check out her videos. I hope you could view the video we collaborated with below.

Alex spoke about important caring and support tips regarding how carers may have to judge the situation by gut feelings. There will be times when a carer has to assess how to provide care and support. It can be almost walking like eggshells if a carer crowds the “caree”. Alex explains this well in the video.

The collaborated video also looks into how a carer’s experiences can be vital in providing care and support, plus we look at some other tips which could be important to both the and service user or carer’s journey.

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I hope you enjoy the video and blog and hope to see you next time when I take on an immense project in which I examine different types of therapies.

Networking with fellow carers

FamilyWelcome again to another one of my carer blog posts. On this particular post I am going to talk about networking with carers. When I talk about carers, I am talking about unpaid carers, I am not mentioned care workers who work for a care agency. Care workers are paid and have clients, carers are unpaid and care for someone they are related to or emotionally attached or at least know.

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Southwark Mental Health Carers Forum 2017 July

Southwark MH Carers forumThis is a update from the new Southwark Mental Health Carers forum for July. The Mental Health Carers forum for the London borough of Southwark, took place on the 28th of July 2017 over at the Jane field room at Maudsley hospital.

We had good attendance from carers, a representative of Southwark Carers and a researcher working on carers experiences. The first forum for carers caring for someone suffering mental health problems looked into how such a forum would be shaped.

 

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Lewisham BME Mental Health Carers Forum July 2017

handsWelcome to the update for July 2017 of the Lewisham BME mental health carers forum. This is the first BME Mental Health forum for carers in this borough. The forum is run in conjunction with Family Health ISIS who provide community support for those in mental distress and also advocate for their unpaid carers.

To watch the video update, please click on the video below.

The forum chaired by myself examined how the forum should take place and why such a forum should exist. In the discussion it was clear that we feel we have no idea how many BME Carers in Lewisham. We also feel that perhaps there is limited influence BME carers have on Mental Health services.

Mental Health BME carers need some empowerment in their role and hopefully the forum can be a physical platform to allow such carers to engage and empower themselves.

There of course is a large community BME in the London borough of Lewisham. Plus with a history of discrimination, stigma and lack of understanding of mental health, which BME communities can experience, the forum wishes to investigate what causes such issues and how could they be tackled.

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Other reasons for the creation of the BME carers forum is that a high rate of the BME community using the mental health services. We unfortunately do not know the number, so we should query data, which Healthwatch could provided some assistance.

The reasons for the forum are numerous, so I could not list them all down, however lastly there has been several studies and research requiring input from BME communities, but with minimal reach. Why?

Questions and issues

Some questions were raised during the forum e.g.

  • What is the quality improvement for BME carers?
  • Who is monitoring the data?
  • Plus there should be a breakdown of the data.

A Lot of the discussion focused on the stigma experienced by BME lived experienced and their carers. We all told stories of what it was like to be a BME Mental Health carer and stigma was a common theme.

We felt lack of education and information on what mental health means could be affecting the BME community. There also needs to be a range of mental health education for young BME groups, but the forum wondered how this is going to progress.

One thing, which the forum members felt was that there seems to be an issue with mental health jargon. The theme kept occurring when exploring BME mental health carer issues.

We looked at who should engaged with the forum and due to browsing through the “Meeting the public sector equality duty at SLaM 2014” – The Equality Manager, Organisation and Community SLaM was suggested.

Also the Senior Associate, Equality & Diversity at Lewisham CCG was suggested, but we also need to continue to grow the forum, which must feed for FHI carer support groups.

Lambeth Mental Health Carers Forum July 2017

20140710_143445Welcome back and here is the update for the Lambeth Mental Health carers forum for July 2017. This probably the second time the forum took place, since the last Lambeth Mental Health carers forum was more of a planning meeting to structure the forum.

As a form of carer empowerment, I chaired the forum and hope we can have a rotation of carers charing for the following months. Chairing a forum can give carers more confidence at meetings, leadership and being involved.

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Lewisham mental health carers forum July 2017

coverHere is the update for the Lewisham Mental Health Carers forum for July 2017.  This is one of the older mental health carer forums in south London, the carers forum has been running for more than a year.  Of course, When I say “Mental Health Carer”, I mean someone who is caring unpaid for a relative, friend or neighbour suffering from some form of mental illness.

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