Andrew Herbert is our Mental Health Strategic Lead and works closely with community sector organisations in the mental health field.
The Mental Health Alliance connects with a wide range of groups across different sectors, focusing particularly on the NHS Transformation programme.
With many services in other sectors currently under great pressure, this is leading to rising demand and levels of need for the community sector.
Through the Mental Health Alliance, we can make a vital contribution to mental health work across all age groups, but we want to focus on what we do well, such as:
Membership of the Mental Health Alliance is wide ranging, covering all ages, organisations that focus entirely on mental health and various specialist bodies, but we’re still reaching out to extend our membership and welcome further interest through CWVA.
We’re interested to hear from any community organisations active in the mental health field in any way and we’re keen to reach out to under-represented groups, particularly faith organisations, outdoor wellbeing projects and supported living providers.
Anyone can receive a Mental Health ebulletin to keep up-to-date about this area of work, while Mental Health Alliance members can access a Slack channel to engage with others about mental health.
If you’d like support with anything around the mental health agenda, please email: andrew.herbert@cwva.org.uk.
CWVA and nine other community sector organisations have developed Positive Mental Health for Us, a project aiming to share the experiences of under-served communities and improve access to mental health support.
This project, which has been funded by Cheshire West and Chester Council’s Promoting Equality and Diversity Fund, has been led by CWVA through its Mental Health Alliance.
Data and insight gathered by the Mental Health Alliance has shown that people from under-served communities can be at greater risk of mental health challenges and often face barriers when trying to access support.
The aim of this project is to enable people from these under-served communities to share their lived experience, highlighting the challenges and barriers they face and working with mental health providers and commissioners to improve support for people in future.
You can view previous editions of CWVA’s Mental Health ebulletin.
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