Spring is in the air and the snow drops are in bloom.

Under a blue sky I visited Speke Training and Education Centre (STEC) to learn more about Kindred Minds, a small user-led organisation, promoting good mental health and well being for adults resident in the Merseyside area [ more details available on http://www.thelivewelldirectory.com ].

Based in modest room, housed within STEC, Kindred Minds offers a number of peer-led groups: Arts + Crafts on Thursday afternoons being its most popular ; also a weekly Walking group and its latest launch is a Singing Group using a local venue: Metal Box ( a  social club opposite the STEC building)  to let singers let off steam and sing loud!

Seen on the photo above is the Polytunnel which has grown flowers, fruit and veg for the last three years and allows Kindred mInds friends to experiment with small scale horticulture in a supportive environment.

Here is a picture of Will.;  the Projects Co-ordinator who described himself as acting as a conduit for the groups to meet , for example, by using the ever popular Whats App the walking group can arrange to meet in a flexible way, given the unpredictability of the weather! Will has been in post since October 2017, whilst the organisation has been in existence since 2011 and is an off spring of the larger third sector organisation: PSS.

Will can be contacted on

kindredmindsliverpool@gmail.com

Although situated in the heart of Speke the organisation is open to any Merseyside resident and has a very simple remit at heart: to open its doors to anyone who is experiencing mental distress  in order that they find solace and occupation through connecting in social groups which promote friendship and acceptance.

 

 

For the third year running MYA working in partnership with Liverpool CAMHS, Liverpool Cultural Partnership, The Arts Council and MYA SPACE has worked with 19 schools and youth groups to show case the talent of young people in Merseyside and their passion for exploring better mental health .

This year’s theme is Education and its impact on Mental Health – for better or worse, often both. Whilst access to a good education is every child’s right, for many the education system is a strait jacket and creates stress and feelings of humiliation and failure  which adversely affect personal growth. Increasingly the system is a ‘ one course fits all model’ and children who learn differently , have unconventional or disparate  early life experiences and possibly  additional pressures are not served

well by an inflexible system. Teachers are also under stress with one study declaring 60 % of teachers report poorer mental health as a result of the increased pressures placed upon them.

The exuberant  NOW performances will look at the whole picture and make us think and question what is happening for children and young people in the current education system , and those who have been adversely impacted and are still picking up the pieces of a lowered self esteem and lack of confidence.

And they will do it with style , humour, energy and originality- so lets hear it from them!

The Festival is over three evenings at the Epstein theatre – starting each evening at 18.30 on 31st January , 1st and 2nd February. Our very own Lisa Nolan, along with a team of colleagues have the unenviable task of selecting the winning performances – good luck to the team  and the final evening features MP Luciana Berger- a stalwart supporter of young people’s mental health. There are also surprise performances  from creative arts youth groups from within Merseyside,  always a hot bed of cultural creativity.

Please follow twitter for updates and images : #NOWfestLiv

With many thanks to the Festival Director Kath Thompson and her creative team , the steering group and the SPACE team- this is a fantastic contribution to the lives of young people in our great city.

 

For more information on the work of The MYA Raise team – who specialise in the promotion of mental health and resilience follow @MYRAISETEAM

or email

mentalhealthpromotion@mya.org.uk

 

 

 The Cheshire and Merseyside Women’s and Children’s Partnership (Improving me) organised a book event at Liverpool’s historic  Bluecoat Chambers on January 30th 2018.

Reading is to be celebrated and there is now new evidence to support reading ‘ to bumps’ – revealed by staff from Liverpool’s Central Library and co- workers from the BookTrust who are behind BookStart. Please check out http://www.ascel.org.uk for further inspiration and suggestions promoting the value of reading to babes in the womb and from birth onwards.

The Bluecoat also offers a a Baby Book Group providing a stimulating, fun and inviting space for parents and babies to learn to love books together, for babes from 3m to 12 months.

Liverpool Library staff are passionate about celebrating and promoting the value of early reading and reminded me of their fabulous Childrens’ library area in the amazing Central Library building, rumor has it the space used today for our early readers is built on a bear pit!

At the event a newly published book:  From Prevention to Prescription: The Female Mind: A User’s Guide’ was presented with key notes delivered by the book’s Editor : Professor Kathryn Abel and contributing author Dr Sandeep Ranote.

(Central Library has multiple copies available for loan)

Extracts from two chapters of the book were read out and participants were invited to discuss their responses, reactions  and questions with others seated at their table.

The subject topics included Eating Disorders and maternal- baby attachment ( ‘Sensitive Motherhood’). These are two areas high on the agenda of the CAMHS Partnership and Women and Children Directorate of Liverpool CCG and areas of key importance. Neuroscience supports the First 1000 days as crucial   in brain development and we know that children and young people suffering from an eating disorder need a rapid assessment at the point when they present to increase effectiveness of treatment and secure the best likely results for recovery.

Increased national funding to regions to develop Community based Eating Disorder services is a vital part of the picture and new research is revealing a genetic component and an emerging neurobiology which shows links to anxiety and possibly neurodevelopmental disorders ; with the UK leading the international academic community. However less is known about the complex overlay of societal and psychological triggers and drivers, with suggestions that perfectionism, a celebrity driven media and unreal expectations fuel adolescent anxiety about appearance and identity.

My own personal view is that understanding ‘The Female Mind’  needs disciplines other than Medicine to deepen our understanding of a condition which is now showing an increase in primary school aged children. We need to be working with anthropologists ((who study  what makes us human; including the role of  culture and language) , sociologists ( who study human society, and its problems) and artists- who think differently.

At Liverpool CCG we seek to bring together these multiple perspectives through working in collaboration with CLAHRC – our University umbrellas which bring expertise from the social sciences and patients and citizens into collaborations through the CHLARC Partner Priority  programme .

We are currently looking at how we strengthen our services  and care for young people experiencing emotional distress under the PPP.

Within the Social Model of Health Liverpool CCG we recognise intrinsically the value of a broader frame of reference rather than a biological medical model and continue to strengthen our links with colleagues working in the Arts, Nature and and Sports to promote physical and psychological wellness .

In mid December I visited the Bluebell Woods in Aintree, a part of Fazakerley Woods & Fields Nature Reserve, owned by Aintree University Hospital.

Green therapy, ‘green care for mental ill-health’ ( see gov.uk for a report commissioned by Natural England )and nature based activities are increasingly  being viewed as positive ways to alleviate stress and increase social connection.

Why is it good for us to spend time in green spaces?

We naturally feel better when we spend time outdoors, breathing in fresh air, listening to the birds and seeing the seasons change before our eyes. Understanding how this might benefit our health in a broader capacity has been looked at by Public Health scientists.   Sir Michael Marmot’s  spear-heading report : Fair Society,  Healthy Lives  (2010) proposed a new way of looking at health inequalities in England  and the report was followed up with a revised set of indicators  which summarised  why improving access to green spaces is good for us:

 

 

 

 

Last week I had the pleasure of visiting The Life Rooms ( http://www.liferooms.org)  in the heart of Walton and my practice area.

Opened in 2016 it has seen 22, 00 visitors   with around 75% members or students, linked to Merseycare ( & Talk Liverpool ) and 25 %  footfall from  local residents who use the excellent, free  IT services , drink the quality coffee and delicious locally made cakes, access the library ( volunteer run ) or perhaps are members of the Local Walton History Group.

The architecture is stunning- the library a Carnegie bequest to the people of Liverpool in 1911. The building’s proportions are uplifting-the eye drawn upwards to the graceful domed ceiling , the bold and high set windows, the light filled spaces and airiness of the structure; with it’s  central olive and silver birch tree and romantic Narnia lamppost a central feature.

The Life Rooms embody a social prescribing model although eschew the medical terminology and prefer to see the enterprise as ‘social  resource empowerment’, which starts with an individual , rooted in a community and then considers , using an asset based approach at building up an individual’s resources. Members,  who can self refer or be referred by their GP , will meet with a Pathway Adviser who will work with the individual to explore what it is they need and how to access it ; with on-site facilities including scheduled appointments with CAB, joining a course from the menus of The Recovery College programme, consulting with a Liverpool -in -work advisor, accessing professional help from Lloyds Banking who might work on  CV development or perhaps finding a new passion such as singing!

The Philharmonic has been a long standing partner and offers the SuperSing to cohorts of 24 novice singers who then get a chance to perform. Other fabulous opportunities exist to bring music into lives through the Musician in Residence programme offered at sites within MerseyCare and self driven portals such as attending a Music Appreciation course.

Offering workshops to meet  Clarinettists and poets shows the range of  opportunities available, sitting alongside  the expansive  range  of Recovery Courses on offer such as  understanding anxiety and depression and broader psycho-education themes which  allow members to ‘ pick and mix’ what is best suited to their needs. This more creative and energising offer has to be the way forward.

As we develop more integrated offers  of social interventions we move towards enabling people to release their full potential and live as full a life as a human being as is possible: a maxim as ageless as humanity itself yet one with which we still wrestle as providers of healthcare. We have been so locked in a dualistic view, dating from Descartes, which for centuries saw Medicine viewing the mind and body as separate.

With the embrace of social models of health we are finally turning a corner with a vision which can see people holistically and seek to empower not disenfranchise. The Life Rooms is , amongst  other  examples of innovative practice on Merseyside, helping  to illuminate the way forward.

 

 

I have been incredibly inspired and challenged by a recent read : ‘Being Mortal’, written by the extraordinary Professor Atul Gawande. He is a US practising surgeon, Public Health physician and Professor at Harvard and the driver behind the WHO Surgical check list which has halved mortality rates across the world and would continue to reduce harm- if it was always adhered to….

In this his third book he questions our mortality and lays it bare  : ‘ Being mortal is about the  struggle to cope with the constraints of our biology, with the limits set by genes and cells and flesh and bone’ .  Gawande then takes on Medicine’s unremitting and unquestioning approach to illness which is almost always to prolong life, regardless of a person’s dearest hopes and wishes, balanced against their fears, and often in the face of  very limited beneficial outcomes.

He is uncompromising in our ‘wilful blindness’ to look beyond longevity as the prize and again and again laments and implores medicine to be more human; including himself in his critique of doctors as purveyors of information rather then as interpreters of what ‘the facts’ might mean to an individual in the middle of living out their own unique life story.

The book is sewn around a series of clinical encounters and true narratives which ache with compassion and are utterly compelling.

Gawande’s cri de coeur which resonates with ‘conversationsaboutwellness’ is to throw down the gauntlet and assert that ‘we have been wrong about what our job is in medicine….(not only  to ) ensure health and survival but it is to enable well-being’.

So back to my journey to learn more about what makes the citizens of Liverpool glad to be alive, helped along the way by the myriad of impressive and energetic  third sector organisations who offer such personalised support.

 

 

 

 

 

Friday 13th saw me visiting YPAS Plus North Community Hub ( www. ypas.org.uk) open now for 10 weeks under the expert hands of Janine Perrit, Hub Co-ordinator.

The Hub is a key player, along with the central and south Hub, in the Liverpool offer of Mental Health and Emotional Well-being services  offered to children and young people from 0-25 years in the Liverpool region, under the CAMHS Partnership (www.liverpoolcamhs.com)

The Hub is open  office hours throughout the week with extended opening currently until 6pm Mon-Thurs when it hosts the one and only SMARTYS club: a drop in space for under 10/11 year olds. This unique children’s club has  sterling support from a mum’s group on the local housing estate who  amazingly kept the Centre open and welcoming for children  for 18 months when the Centre’s future was uncertain and the Council  had ceased to offer services ( with the demise of the Youth Services offer).

Over the summer the YPAS crew ( strong in might but  small in numbers) arrived to work with the local community (and navigate transfer of land deeds) until the Centre had its official opening on July 13th.

The current offer is to provide a safe, warm space for young people and their parents to meet together, play outside in the inviting play area (check out the wooden climbing frame below), and access organised group activities.

It is intended that the therapeutic offer will extend soon, to receive family therapy as therapists relocate from Central Hub. And mental health practitioners can make use of the well appointed consulting rooms which have all been recently refurbished and are very inviting and comfortable spaces for consultations.

Outreach work is pivotal and the Centre is connecting with the local primary school Mab Lane- its immediate neighbour, local police officers, detached youth workers, and local  community colleges. The YPAS Plus crew are treading virgin territory with the North of Liverpool  having no previous experience of such a centre and certainly  for  young people aged 15 years plus such centres are associated with Family Centres or Sure Starts  where services are directed to the under 5 yrs so there is no familiarity with such a novel concept as a Youth Mental Health Hub.

Life is tough on the local estate. The landscape is concrete and harsh and work opportunities are limited but this is a close community with a deep pride and care and concern for its more vulnerable members. The asset building approach embraced by YPAS and the Hubs will build on the strengths of the community and slowly and surely the North Hub will become a beacon.