VCSE organisations working together to address mental health support needs in Worcestershire – Programme Update

VCSE Mental Health providers, supported by the Alliance are working with Health partners to reduce demand on GP surgeries. This work is being funded by Herefordshire and Worcestershire Health and Care Trust.  

Ten more countywide MEG courses are planned to be delivered by Sandycroft and Old Needleworks starting February/March 2024. Onside have developed and begun delivery of their Peer Support Mentor Training Programme. They are working on matching newly trained mentors to waiting mentees, delivering more training, setting up a group for the mentors to support each other and reviewing feedback from mentees.

Expansion of the link workers is continuing by Onside, Worcestershire Association of Carers and South Warwickshire and Worcestershire MIND. Work is ongoing to review current practice and develop Reporting and Quality Assurance guidance across VCSE to enable better consistency and more smaller organisations to be able to contribute to service delivery.

This work includes close working with a number of related workstreams, including but not limited to:

·       Working with Worcestershire Association of Carers we are gathering useful information about VCSE organisations that are providing VCSE mental health services. A report will be produced and shared with partners. If you would like a copy please get in touch.

·       Work is underway to align the quality of VCSE Mental Health services with NHS Health and Care Trust services.

·       Working with ICS academy, coaching and mentoring group we are developing a mentoring framework for those working within VCSE mental health services.

·       Developing training resources to support VCSE orgs with research and evaluation.

·       Working with WeCAN we are developing funding network to support VCSE organisations.