Blues Skies

Date of event: 15/07/09
Organised by: Target: Wellbeing Regional Support Network
Venue: Mansion House Active Age Centre, Age Concern Halton and St.Helens
Report by: Rob Squires, Network Co-ordinator - Third Sector

This was the second Target: Wellbeing networking event and this time the aim was to connect projects across the region that work on mental health issues.

The venue for the event was the stunning Age Concern Mansion House, located in Victoria Park outside St Helens town centre. The event was a trip down memory lane for me, as I used to work at the Mansion House as the gardener back in 1996. When I joined the Target: Wellbeing team I was intrigued to learn that the Trust Matters 50+ Counselling service is based there, and when I met Paul Chadwick who runs the project, I was very impressed with the work they are doing and was keen to visit the Mansion House again.

After the networking event I had a little look round, and was pleased to see that the house and gardens have maintained their splendour. Upon entering the kitchen gardens I was amazed to see that some willow snaps I had planted back in ’96 have grown into beautiful 30ft high trees.

Paul gave a great presentation about their counselling service, and told a really touching story about a client, who had been feeling suicidal until receiving services from Paul and his team, who put him back on track. The client told Paul that he had put the rope in his hands that saved his life, and that it was Paul's team that pulled him out of the hole. The client gave Paul a copy of a Fathers' Day card from his children, telling him how much they loved and appreciated him. He told Paul that without the help of Trust Matters he probably would not have been alive to this day, to receive the card.

Stories like this are the real stuff, and they cut straight through all the frustrations we feel, as we struggle to evidence the impact that Target: Wellbeing is having, and motivate us to carry on doing what we do.

In addition to Paul, there was a fascinating presentation from Jude Stansfield, Public Mental Health and Wellbeing lead with Government Office North West, who gave us the low down on policy issues in the region.

Amongst other things, Jude gave us a sneak preview of New Horizons from the Department of Health, which is a new vision and programme of work to improve the mental wellbeing of everyone, as well as continuing to improve the quality and accessibility of mental health services. It aims to address the inequalities that different groups in society experience, both in accessing services and in levels of mental health. It will set out the national direction from 2010.

Jude also told us about PROMiSE, which is a new third sector regional mental health network, being pulled together by Voluntary Sector North West and NHS North West, in order to link the sector in with the region’s Mental Health Improvement Programme. PROMiSE are having their launch event on September 7^th in Preston (see the VSNW website for more information), and they will be looking for representatives from the sector to sit on the MHIP’s steering and stakeholder boards. Target: wellbeing intends to put forward an applicant to this position, to make sure that mental health projects within our network have an influence within decision making in this area.

Jude also happened to drop into the conversation, that she has organised it for Target: Wellbeing to provide a workshop at the Northwest Wellbeing Conference 2009. This is a important event which will incorporate the 6^th annual Northwest Public Health Conference and the 17^th annual conference of the WHO Regions For Health Network. The theme of our workshop will be around ‘Lessons learned’. We are keen to involve projects in the delivery of this workshop and will be circulating more information soon. Thank you to Jude for pulling this workshop out of a bag, and giving us this opportunity to make an impression.

There were around 20 people at our networking event in all, representing different projects and programmes from across the region. I took the opportunity therefore, to run a workshop and get information from people about how we can strengthen the Target: Wellbeing network. I asked the same 4 questions as I did at the Running with the Times networking event, at the National Wildflower Centre, last week (see previous blog to see what these are). As with this event, I will be collating the information generated from Networking events, and producing a summary report later in the year.

Thanks to everybody that came to the Mansion House, you are all stars, and I look forward to seeing you at future events.