The Worcestershire VCSE has been presented with a significant opportunity to enhance mental health services throughout the county. Through the allocation of 12 months of funding by the Herefordshire and Worcestershire Health and Care Trust, the Worcestershire VCSE Alliance will work towards integrating services and effectively addressing the unmet needs within existing mental health services across both primary and secondary care.
Carole Cumino, Alliance Executive Lead is supporting this work until the Programme Manager is in post.
The project is being run by the Alliance Mental Health Steering Group chaired by Steve Brewster, CEO of Active Herefordshire and Worcestershire.
There are 5 key strands of work:
- Delivering specific ‘Managing Emotions’ groups to people in Redditch (the area with the longest waiting lists for these groups)
- Expanding group provision in other areas based on those areas with the longest waiting lists – using the model developed for Redditch
- Building on successful provision already provided by the VCSE, specifically the Community Mental Health Transformation programme
- Working out a means of providing funding to local organisations to support mental ill-health prevention work
- Working with the VCSE to be involved in the following longer term tender opportunity:
Voluntary, Community, and Social Enterprise Mental Health Services
The main purpose of this funding will be to:
‘shape community mental health pathways and have the capability and capacity of delivering mental health interventions in collaboration with statutory sector partners through a population health management approach.’
Further updates will be provided soon.