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​New non executive director joins our Board

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We’ve been keen to strengthen our clinical representation at Board level so we’re delighted to announce the appointment of Michael Holland as a non executive director.

Michael is currently associate medical director, chief clinical information officer and consultant psychiatrist at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. He has lead responsibility for quality improvement across the hospital.

As a consultant psychiatrist, he also works with cancer patients and their carers at clinics within Guy’s and St Thomas’ and King’s College hospitals.

He lectures in quality improvement in mental health both nationally and internationally and has published many reports and audit analyses since 1998. In 2008 he achieved an MBA from London Business School.

We welcome him on board.

At the same time two of our non executive directors have stepped down after coming to the end of their terms of office. We’d like to thank Nigel Goldie and Ian Hughes for their valuable contribution over the years.

Popular Bailey’s café saved thanks to new partnership

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We’re joining forces with the Water Lily Project to give the popular Bailey’s café a new lease of life and save it from closure.

The Water Lily Project (WLP) is a Christchurch based charity which offers outreach support to local and vulnerable women to help them cope with and overcome whatever difficult situations they find themselves in.

WLP will be taking over the running of Bailey’s Café from Richmond Fellowship’s East Dorset Community Service.  Due to a change in the contract to provide services from the premises in Barrack Road, Richmond Fellowship needed to find a partner who could take the café on.

WLP project manager Lynn Chisadza said: “In addition to this venture that we have taken up, WLP is also pleased to have the opportunity of opening its first residential home in early 2015. We’re so excited about the potential that running the café will bring. This will enable the project to give training opportunities and provide a useful resource for local residents.

“We are so grateful for the support we have received thus far from Dorset County Community Fund, Round Table, Seedbed Christian Community Trust, local churches, local people and the local borough council who share our dream.”

Richmond Fellowship will continue to run its mental health community services from the Barrack Road offices and will be extending the groups and activities it runs in the Christchuch, Purbeck and Wimborne areas, under the terms of its new three year contract with Dorset County Council.

RF locality manager Doug Low said: “We’re delighted to be working with the Water Lily Project to keep the café open to the general public, including those people with mental health issues, and to be taking our services out to local people through our new community service contract.”

Making a splash – RF holds anti-stigma event at Europe’s top waterpark for World Mental Health Day

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Richmond Fellowship’s Blackpool Employment Service is marking World Mental Health Day with an evening at Sandcastle Waterpark.

This innovative event aims to raise awareness of mental health issues and the stigma around them, support employers in understanding mental health in the workplace, and offer anyone with any questions about their own mental health to come and meet support group – all while having lots of fun.

It’s one of many awareness-raising activities that our services are taking part in across the country to mark World Mental Health Day today (10 October). Now in it’s 22nd year, the day aims to highlight the importance of good mental health, and this year’s focus is ‘Living with schizophrenia.’

Other activities Richmond Fellowship is taking part in includes:

  • For Take Notice Day, Stockport Home Support is holding an information stall
  • Trinity St care home is holding an information stand at Heckmondwike with a bran tub and lots of promotional goodies on offer
  • A stall in Sudbury Market Square, with a live local band and promotional material to give away, is being run by Suffolk Recovery
  • Peterborough Employment Service is running an event at Peterborougn Football Ground to support managers and employers in understanding and assisting employees with mental health problems
  • A Take Time to Talk artworkshop is being run by Face2Face Dorset at Bournemouth University with etching and badge-making, as well as information about mental health problems and support
  • Art Matters, our community art studio in Redhill, Surrey, is holding three workshops at TheLightbox Gallery in Woking while our East Surrey Community Connections team is holding a ‘Feel Good Day’
  • 2Care Trevayler is having aful day of ativities, startigwih a breakfast cluband followedbyworkshos and dicussons bout stiga,a theatre production and dinner
  • Our services in Liverpool are running an information stand in Williamson Square and Our Time will be promoting our tim-bank and showcasing some of its activities, all as part of Liverpool’s World Mental Health Day Festival.

Richmond Fellowship chief executive Derek Caren said: “Every year we support more than 9,000 people with mental health problems and it’s really important to us to raise awareness about good mental wellbeing for everyone. It’s great to see so many of our services working in their communities to bring positive attention to mental health and the support available.”

 

 

 

We’re named as provider of new crisis services in Leicestershire

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Richmond Fellowship has been awarded the contract by Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust (LPT) to provide mental health crisis services to support people in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland.

The service will provide short-term intensive support for individuals who need additional help during times of mental health crisis.

Service user and members of the public were consulted in shaping the specification for the new service which will provide:

  • Access to telephone and face-to-face support in times of crisis
  • Facilities to accommodate short residential stays for people who might otherwise be admitted to hospital because no alternative is available.

Our crisis support will enhance the NHS Trust’s existing acute mental health care pathway and forms part of wider service development plans to increase access to timely and effective care in the community, and help avoid unnecessary hospital admissions.

LPT project manager Zayba Joondan said: “The evaluation panel was very impressed with the submission from Richmond Fellowship. Their organisational commitment to recovery and inclusion and the innovative ways in which these values will underpin their model of service delivery for the crisis house stood out in their bid.”

Richmond Fellowship locality manager Christine Lawrence said:”We’re really excited to be working with Leicestership Partnership NHS Trust to provide this new crisis service. We’re commited to playing our part in creating joined-up services that can truly provide the best possible care to people with mental health problems, especially in a crisis situation when individuals ae at their most vulnerable.”

The new service is due to launch in January 2015.

We sign up as a supporter of the Mental Health Crisis Care Concordat

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Today Richmond Fellowship signed up as a supporter of the Mental Health Crisis Care Concordat and pledged to play our part in improving care for people.

The Mental Health Crisis Care Concordat is a national agreement between services and agencies involved in the care and support of people in crisis. It sets out how organisations will work together better to make sure that people in crisis receive urgent mental health care.

The concordat focusses on four main areas: access to support before crisis point; urgent and emergency access to crisis care; quality of treatment and care when in crisis; and recovery and staying well.

At Richmond Fellowship we already run a number of crisis services across England, providing support for people in the community as either an alternative option to an admission to hospital or as a step-down between an inpatient stay and returning home. We’re in discussions with a number of NHS trusts about working in partnership to provide more of these services around the country.

And our services on the ground are working with the local NHS, police and local authorities to develop joint plans of action for how we’ll work together to improve services.

Richmond Fellowship chief executive Derek Caren said: “We’re committed to playing our part in creating joined-up services that can truly provide the best possible care for people with mental health problems, especially in a crisis situation when individuals are at their most vulnerable.

“We know there is a lot of pressure on emergency and inpatient provision but at the same time we know that many individuals could be effectively supported in community settings. We’re keen to forge strong partnerships with local agencies on the ground so that together we can provide effective services that meet people’s needs.”

For more information about the concordat visit: www.crisiscareconcordat.org.uk

More than 90% of people using our services said they would recommend Richmond Fellowship to others

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More than 90% of people using our services said they would recommend Richmond Fellowship to others – that’s the findings of our latest service user satisfaction survey.

This is the third time we’ve organised the survey and the feedback we’re getting is helping us to continually improve our services.

A summary of the results called Listening and Learning has now been produced and highlights where we’ve done well and where we need to improve.

Positive feedback from the survey included:

  • We listen to individuals about their needs
  • We help them to make progress with their individual support plan
  • We help them to improve the quality of their life.

Areas where service users said we need to do better included:

  • We need to make it easier for people to give feedback or make a complaint
  • We need to respond more quickly and effectively to repairs and maintenance issues
  • Although most people said they feel safe and secure in our services, we need to do more for those living in our care homes and 24hr residential schemes.

The survey was open to anyone using our services and we received around 1,600 responses, nearly a quarter of all our service users.

Grazina Berry, our director of performance, quality and innovation, said: “Given that our philosophy is to put the people we support at the heart of everything we do, we’re especially pleased that most of of the people we support felt listened to about their needs. However, we know we’ve still got work to do to improve the way we handle comments, complaints and feedback and to make our property services better at organising repairs. We’re investing in both these areas to get things right.”

Richmond Fellowship wins new IAPT contract in Redbridge and Havering

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Richmond Fellowship (RF) is proud to announce a new partnership with North East London Foundation Trust (NELFT) and Big White Wall (BWW) to win a new IAPT contract in London.

We will be specialising in employment pathways in partnership with NELFT as clinical lead and BBW, who will be using innovative technology to offer therapy online.  This is our first partnership with new partners and advances the amazing work that locality manager Ros Hatt has undertaken over the last few years to grow our employment services in east London.  Our staff will co-locate with our partners and play a key part in ensuring high quality services that promote self resilience and sustainable pathways to recovery. It’s an exciting first step into the sphere of digital mental health services for RF.

In the coming months we are will also be looking at working on another project with BWW in Waltham Forest and envisage a strong working relationship as we progress in the future.

New non-executive director joins Richmond Fellowship

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We’ve appointed Peter Molyneux as a non-executive director on our Board

Peter has considerable experience leading organisations in the health, social care and housing sectors and has undertaken projects for a number of organisations including the Tenant Services Authority, the Welsh Assembly Government and the Department of Health (in England).

He is currently chair at SW London and St George’s Mental Health Trust and managing partner at Common Cause Consulting. He’s previously been chair of NHS Kensington and Chelsea and a director at Health and Housing.

He has wide experience of governance in the private, public and voluntary sectors. He has been chair of Strutton Housing Association, a board member of Hexagon Housing Association, a statutory appointee on the board of Novas Scarman, vice chair of the Housing Association’s Charitable Trust and a trustee of Westway Development Trust.

He is a member of the Homes and Community Agency Advisory Group on Older People and Vulnerable Adults and an expert advisor to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. He is a member of the John Madejski Centre for Reputation Management at Henley Business School and a member of the advisory group for the Board Leadership Programme at the King’s Fund.

We welcome him on board.

New non executive director joins Richmond Fellowship Board

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We’ve appointed a new non executive director to join RF’s Board.

Tansi Harper also becomes the new chair of CAN, our substance misuse subsidiary in Northamptonshire.

Tansi’s career was in education. She has been principal of a Leicestershire community college and a college for profoundly disabled young people. She has experience working in leadership roles within the third sector and as regional Consultant for HEFCE for the East Midlands and Northern Ireland. In the later years of her career she also held positions on a variety of health boards.

Since retiring she has continued in those roles and is currently the lay member of Corby CCG responsible for patient and public engagement, taking a particular interest in learning disability and mental health. She is also chair of Northamptonshire Probation Trust and is currently chair of a 4 Probation Trust transformational change programme. She is a former member of the Board of the Probation Association.

We welcome her on board.

Solent Recovery College holds inaugural presentation ceremony

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​Friday 28th February was the inaugural certificate presentation ceremony of Solent Recovery College (SRC). SRC began offering 13 recovery-focused courses in September 2013 and 145 students have successfully completed courses.

The event took place at the Highbury College Campus in Portsmouth and was attended by Professor Geoff Shepherd, Senior Policy Adviser of the Recovery Programme at the Centre for Mental Health and programme leader of imRoc. Professor Shepherd took the opportunity to speak about the widespread benefits for organisations, peer trainers and students that recovery colleges can bring, as well as the positive changes in attitudes that they can help create within local communities.

Students were presented with certificates, with many of those receiving awards having completed more than one course since the recovery college opened in September. The ceremony marks the first successes of a project RF Portsmouth has been proud to be a strong partner in, working alongside Highbury College of Further Education and Solent NHS trust.

There are now 18 recovery colleges in the UK but Solent Recovery College is the only one thus far to operate from a full time FE college campus. The initiative has the full support of Portsmouth City Council, who provide funding for peer trainers. It’s also a contributing factor in Richmond Fellowship being the largest employer of peer support staff in the city, and we provide both paid and volunteer peer workers to co-design and co-deliver all the courses alongside mental health professionals from Solent NHS Trust, including a consultant and a local GP as well as staff from CMHTs.

The next year will see further development of SRC, with a programme of courses for the spring term already being delivered and further courses proposed for 2014-15. Courses are open to people who use mental health services in Portsmouth, their carers and supporters and staff from the three partner organisations. Portsmouth City Council have also recently agreed an extension to RF’s support and recovery contract, which will ensure the partnership can continue to thrive and Solent Recovery College can go from strength to strength.

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Richmond Fellowship is part of Recovery Focus, a group of charities with the shared aim to Inspire Recovery Together www.recoveryfocus.org.uk

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