Latest blog post by Matthew McKenzie on this exciting new research study from Molly Heeger who is a Trainee Clinical Psychologist from the Salomons Institute for Applied Psychology.
She is recruiting for her research project exploring family members experiences of supporting someone with psychosis. If you are caring for someone suffering from psychosis and would like to be involved in the study, please see poster below.
You can contact Molly through the following email : mh1216@canterbury.ac.uk
Media courtsey of BBC News
Here is the latest blog for the month of March. Did you know that on the 6th if March, the Chancellor Jeremy Hunt announced the budget for spring 2024? As a carer, you might not think the budget is important. You might think numbers, figures and percentages are not worth paying attention to. As a carer you might not want to be bothered with political parties, but as a carer activist I feel we must hear the government and hold them to account on their policies.
I was fortunate enough to present my circumstances as a carer on the BBC news. I wanted to know how the budget would affect my caring role. BBC news also interview Holly Mackay who is the Founder and CEO of Boring Money, plus we had Joanne who also wanted to know how the budget affected her situation when trying to buy property.
Holly Mackay gave her thoughts on what she felt would be included in the spring budget. I also wondered how the Budget 2024 would affect my situation as a working carer. There was not a lot of expectation due to the downturn in the economy, but we all waiting with anticipation. Since I engage with carers through my carer groups, I asked how can carers prepare themselves if their situation became worse. Holly Mackay gave some excellent advice.
You can see the first part of the interview below.
After the budget was presented by the Chancellor Jeremy Hunt. Holly gave an excellent breakdown on how the budget will affect those who are vulnerable. I felt that the “Household Support Fund” being extend was great news for those struggling with energy bills, but many were stating it was a short term fix. I also was hoping for an increase in universal credit for both my brothers. Holly mentioned there will be an increase from £368.74 to £393.45 per month, which is good news.
Still, there was no mention of carers allowance in the budget, plus others would like a National Carers Strategy to transform Government’s approach to support unpaid carers. Holly mentioned there is some support for those who provide care and also work, but it might not be enough to make a big difference.
You can watch Part 2 of the interview in the video below.
Again, as a carer you might think the Budget 2024 is boring and not worth paying attention to. As a carer you might think the news on the government is not worth the time. As a carer you probably might think your MP is not interested about carers. I say that it is incredibly important to hold the government to account on the plight of carers. We are lucky to have a government system where we have the power to vote who we feel serves us best.
You can find out more about the budget in the link below
Carers Trust response to the Budget 2024
Carers UK response to the Budget 2024
Holly MacKay Boring Money website
Come election, I hope all carers do their bit to say who they want in power and also hold them to account.
Thanks for reading.
Here is the latest carer and mental health news for February by carer activist and author Matthew McKenzie.
February 2024 Carer and Mental Health news <- Read more news items here.
For the February edition on unpaid caring and mental health we have the following news items.
Carer Videos
Latest Carer News
National Organisation updates
Carer Research Papers
AHPs news updates
Cancer Awareness updates
Welcome to another quick blog by carer activist Matthew McKenzie. I run many carer groups aimed at those caring for someone with mental ill health, most of the groups are voluntary, but there are a few that are co-run with NHS trusts for partnership working and carer empowerment.
I do a lot of carer engagement at West London NHS trust and was delighted to participate in the Forensic Carers Conference held at Conway Hall. The conference was a showcase of what is happening for those who care for someone using Forensice services, it was also to allow carers to promote their lived experience and raise their profile. We also heard from various researchers both national and international.
The event was funded by North London Forensic Consortium. The North London Forensic Consortium consists of the following NHS trusts:
Barnet, Enfield & Haringey Mental Health NHS Trust
Central and North West London Foundation Trust
East London Foundation Trust
North East London Foundation Trust
West London Trust
The North London Forensic Consortium’s core aim was to reduce the number of people who were cared for out of area and create the services their population.
The conference was very well attended and was opened by David Cochrane who is Head of Forensic Social Work at West London NHS trust high secure unit being Broadmoor.
We then had opening remarks from Leanne McGee who is the Chief Operating Officer for High Secure & Forensic services. Next I read one of my carer poems from my book “The mental health carer poetry book”.
I spent a good 10 minutes getting feedback from the audience on what the poem could mean to them and why families and carers would be anxious of the mental health of their loved ones.
We then had a presentation from Dr Sara Rowart from the University of Ghent (Belgium). Dr Sara presentated on “Family perspectives in forensic care trajectories in Belgium”. This then led onto a discussion of learning and comparison of forensic services in the England.
After the coffee break, we heard from Dr Ruth Naughton-Doe (University of York). She and her team presented on “What Support is Provided to families of detained patients, what do families want and what are the challenges?”. We also got to watch a video on the work the team has done so far.
You can also view the research paper of the work in the link below.
https://bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12888-024-05602-9
The Forensic Carers conference was useful for getting feedback from carers, professionals and researchers. So there were several feedback and discussion sessions.
We then heard from sibling link CiC who run peer support groups for adults; one for those who are caring for, affected by or worried about their sibling who is experiencing mental ill health. We heard from co-founders Tash Warburton and Bex King who both presented on “Sibling Link: Support through Connection”.
You can view their website from the link below.
Next we had Raf speaking about expert by experience from Cygnet, unfortunately Laura Sheridan who oversees the Cygnet Carers Network was not able to be in attendance.
I help closed the event with a Joint poem from another Carer who attends my carer forensic group over at West London. My thoughts of the Forensic Carers event are that it was excellent and I am impressed they managed to make the event hybrid so others can join online to even contribute.
I will wait to see how the other NHS trusts promote their carer forensic events
Are you a minority ethnic carer in the areas of Hampshire? Do you want to help improve mental health services for someone you are caring for? How about having your carer story being heard? It is your chance to help ‘Strengthening Cultural Sensitivity within Ethnically Diverse Carer Communities’.
It is time to be heard and also have an impact as a carer. Without your input as an ethnic minority carer then it is difficult for services to understand what is a priority for you. With the support of Touch Network CIC, Southern Health NHS trust wants to hear from you.
The next Carer Story meeting is on the 28th of February. If you are a carer whose loved one is using the services of Southern Health NHS Trust, please leave your contact details in the form or email hannah@touch.network.
Please see the poster below and get a chance to be heard and help set priorities.
We are all in this together and together we will strengthen our diverse communities.
It is important cancer caregivers are included to hear about cancer screening. Luckily over in Greenwich this is a free Cancer Screening awareness event aimed at Carers. See poster for more details.
Welcome fellow carers. Here is another blog post from Carer Activist Matthew McKenzie. This blog post is on the importance of being heard. If you have been caring for someone unpaid for a long time, you know what I mean by trying to get your voice heard.
I am sure you would have experienced the struggles of the person you are caring for. It might be their physical health or mental health or most likely both. It would have been so difficult to see your cared for’s quality of life suffer. You want to make that difference and you want the person you are caring for to improve. So you take up the role of unpaid carer.
It is not an easy role, you would have been through countless of hospital and doctors appointments. You might have gone through the tricky dialogue of communicating with the health professional to get a better outcome. There will be times that you have to take time off work to provide care. If you are not working then there would be challenges to meet bills and payments. This all adds up to mental and physical exhaustion and you wonder to yourself does anyone pay attention to what you are doing?
You are only trying to be there for your family, just like any other family. You know that the health & social care system is struggling, but if you do your bit then the cared for would not have to rely on the NHS.
Still; you have begun to realise that caring is not enough. You have been through so much for far too long and you want to be heard. You have been through such a long road, something has got to count. There must be others out there who have been through the caring role and would have knowledge to share. It has taken sleepless nights, constant anxiety, backbreaking work and feeling guilty from lashing out because you feel you have not been included.
The good news to all of this is that there are ways to be noticed as a carer. The difficult news is that you must take the steps to be heard. It is so important to be identified as a carer, even caring is not enough, it is so important for carers to be heard and to be taken seriously. I am not saying that there is something that can solve all the challenges that carers face. We need to be practical where we can work towards a better day for many carers.
As carers it is important to join a group that fights hard for carers. It is important to link up with other carers who can exchange ideas and also listen to you. A bigger group helps carry the load that each carer faces. Just by chance, the national charity CarersUK are running a campaign to recruit more carer voices.
This means you could become a member of carers UK for a more powerful way to be heard. Carers UK has many resources to help carers understand their role. It also helps that Carers UK understands that caring can be a difficult role and that they have campaigned for policies to make life easier for carers.
So if you want to counted, included and heard then take that step forward. Click on the following link and be part of something that will not give you a voice. but a way to be included.
Life does not have to be so hard because you care
https://www.carersuk.org/get-involved/join-us/become-a-free-member
Researchers from the Centre for Health Service Studies at the University of Kent are working on a new project. They are currently working on a project around ‘Engaging people with severe mental illness with health research in Kent’. The goal of the project is to understand the experiences (if any) that people with a mental illness have with health research in Kent.
They hope to engage with people with mental illness and/or their carers, significant others, key stakeholders or those who have experience working with people severe mental illness. Researchers will collect information through interviews and focus groups in order to understand the ways of enhancing involvement and participation of those with a mental illness in health research.
If you are a carer of someone who has serious mental ill health, you can contact engagementalhealth@kent.ac.uk for more details.
Welcome to a brief update of my Greenwich MH carers forum. Like all my other groups apart from the London cancer carer forum, the Greenwich forum provides a platform for carers supporting someone with mental ill health.
The group seeks engagement from the mental health trust Oxleas, healthwatch Greenwich, social care, local authority and health services. It is important that unpaid carers are heard, included and involved regarding services.
For the January forum, we were joined by Healthwatch Greenwich on their update on the focus of including carer feedback about services.
The second set of speakers were Britt makhetshemu and Ana Stojanovic (South East London Mind) on the development of the new Greenwich Mental Health Hub.
We were also joined by Sue Sauter who is the Lead governor for Oxleas NHS trust.
Nakkita has a focus on topics such as Poverty, Vulnerability and Community Activism. Her interests are in how rights are upheld, especially during times of crisis and amplifying the voices of those most marginalised. She is passionate about giving back to the community she has grown up in and the services she has used, as a carer.
Nakkita De Silva who is the Admin & Project Assistant at Healthwatch Greenwich updated on the research project about improving services for adult ethnic minority carers in Greenwich.
Next to present to carers and Greenwich carers was the development of the Greenwich Mental Health Hub. This is a partnership between South East Mind, Oxleas NHS and Bridge Support.
It was noted that the is a strong case for for Community Mental Health Transformation, because of the following.
The Greenwich MH hub has a strong vision to develop:-
Personalised support. Where their commitment is to provide a diverse and personalised range of support for people facing mental health challenges within the community, addressing their psychological, physical, and social needs.
Crisis prevention. Their approach is to enable earlier support, foster recovery and staying well, and prevent the escalation of mental health issues that could lead to crises.
Making care fairer. The Greenwich MH hub are dedicated to reducing inequalities in access and experience of mental health care for all adult residents of Greenwich, regardless of where they live or their background.
A lot of time was presented on what the Greenwich Hubs core model is looking like
It was presentated that people should be able to transition seamlessly between different types of help, care and support as their presenting needs change on their recovery journey from ‘thriving’ and ‘getting advice’ to ‘getting risk support’.
Presenters Britt makhetshemu and Ana Stojanovic also talked about the pathways people have to access inteventions at the Greenwich hub.
Oxleas Lead governor Sue Sauter engages with the carer forum
Did you know a lot of mental health trusts have governors hold to account their board? Governors are usually voted in by the public, patients, carers and staff. It was excellent to see the lead governor Sue Sauter.
Sue worked at the NHS for over 40 years as a Registered Midwife in both a clinical, managerial and supervisory capacity. During this period, she was also employed by the Nursing & Midwifery Council and was a member and latterly, a Chair of their Professional Conduct Panels.
Sue talked about the roles of a governor, where one of the roles is to ensure the voice of our members, the public, patients and staff is used to inform our trust’s decisions and improve medical care and patient experience.
Since governors are voted into the role, it helps that they can hear from community groups. Sue was kind enough to take views back from our group and feed this through their council of governors.
This concludes a brief update of the Greenwich MH carers forum.
Welcome to a brief update of my ethnic mental health carers forum. This is the January 2024 update where the forum focused on updates from mental health NHS trusts. The update was specifically on the new equalities initiative from NHS England, which is the Patient Carer Race Equality Framework. (click on picture below to zoom in)
As of 2024 the mandatory framework will support NHS trusts and providers on their journeys to becoming actively anti-racist organisations by ensuring that they are responsible for co-producing and implementing concrete actions to reduce racial inequalities within their services
Usually for my ethnic mental health carers group, I focus on things outside PCREF, but since PCREF has a heavy focus on minority voices, my group looks to engage with NHS trusts and their PCREF ambassodors on updates. A special note is the group is interested on how minority carers are being identified and included.
I am aware many NHS mental health trusts learn from each other so for the January group we had the following attend and present
As usual I brought in a special guest speaker from Middlesex University to speak about the following topic which she published in The Practising Midwife for the 2023 edition in November. Kristina spoke about “Mental Health Context for Minoritised Ethnic Individuals” and was specifically interested in why Perinatal birthing minoritised ethnic women and people suffer from poorer outcomes. Just to note, Krishna is not a mental health nurse, but a nurse under midwifery at University College London Hospital. She also teaches Midwifery at Middlesex University.
NELFT PCREF Presentation
Before we move onto Kristina’s presentation, the ethnic carer forum opened with a presentation from Asia Zaman who is the Transformation Project Manager for PCREF at North East London NHS FT. She was joined by Tarek Seeraullee who is the Havering Carers Lead at NELFT.
NELFT NHS has taken strong steps to not only incorporate PCREF, but also align it towards the hospitals carers strategy. The NHS trust presented that they admit their patients and carers have poorer outcomes, but things will improve through the following drives and more.
Presentated was 10 PCREF competencies where the carers strategy was aligned. We then had a Q&A session from attendees some carers were also from NELF.
SWLSTG PCREF Presentation
It was kind for South West London & St George to attend and present their focus on PCREF. This section was presented by Tom Carter who is the Peer Involvement Coordinator, Involvement Team. I know SWLSTG NHS trust fairly well as I have been hosting a carers peer forum for 4 years. My carers group in SW london covers the same areas as the MH trusts being Sutton, Merton, Richmond, Wandsworth and Kingston.
Tom presented the focus for PCREF at the NHS organisation, however we did have a few attendees from the area interested in the focus on ethnic minority carers. This is because they saw the presentation from NELFT and did not wanted to be left out. There was specific interest from Wandsworth carers centre and a few others.
On a side note, the mental health trust has developed a new induction video, which you might want to view below.
As mentioned earlier, I was joined by Kristina to talk about her publication on why minorities groups giving birth had poorer outcomes. The group cannot always restrict itself to mental health NHS services as the equality challenge is presented in all other health sectors include acute services.
Kristina presented that one of the leading causes of maternal death antenatally and postpartum is mental ill health (10-20% of women).
Kristina mentioned that poorer outcomes could be challenged with the following.
Cultural competency training for healthcare professionals
Cultural competency vs cultural humility
Workforce needs to be reflective of the population we care for- think outreach, retention, development opportunities
Non-pharmaceutical interventions
You can view Kristina’s article from the following site. https://www.all4maternity.com/mental-health-context-for-minoritised-ethnic-individuals/
I have been involved at Kent & Medway for a long time and sit on their triangle of care steering group (see below).
https://www.kmpt.nhs.uk/carers/triangle-of-care
KMPT were very kind to engage with the ethnic MH carer forum to update us on their progress. We were joined by a number of Kent & Medway presenting their focus although time ran out before CNWL presented on their drive to include the Patient Carer Race Equality Framework.
CNWL, South London & Maudsley, plus Oxleas NHS and NHS England will update in February.
This concludes my brief update for the Ethnic mental health carers forum January 2024.
A Caring Mind 