Mental health charities’ ‘Big Conversation’ consultation informs new strategy
The newly formed group of Richmond Fellowship, 2Care, CAN, Croftlands Trust, My Time and Aquarius, is developing a joint strategy to truly put the people supported by these organisations at the heart of what they do.
Earlier this year these organisations ran a ‘Big Conversation’ to help inform their plans to enable individuals to be more actively involved at all levels. And now we’re publishing the results.
The Big Conversation aimed to find out how people might want to participate in and have greater influence over:
- Their own support plan
- How our services are run
- How our organisations are run
- Championing mental health issues and challenging stigma in society
The results of the Big Conversation are being shared and have shaped the strategy development based on what people told us was important to them. Some of the key outcomes include:
- Giving people access to read and update their own records and to write their support plans in their own language and style
- Enabling joint decision-making in local services about how budgets are spent and the activities that happen
- Increasing the representation of the people these organisations support at the top level
- Working together to do more to raise awareness of mental health issues and challenge stigma
Richard, who uses My Time’s services and has been working on the strategy development said: “After spending time as part of the group and taking part in the ‘Big Conversation’ I’m reassured by how committed everyone is to successfully implementing the new strategy”.
The strategy highlights the group’s way of working, where staff and people who use services work together as equal partners to design, plan and provide support together. This is called co-production. A full breakdown of the strategy will be shared later this year.
