In my role as the VCSE strategic lead for Living Well, I enjoy the opportunity to connect with many different organisations providing invaluable mental health support to the community in Salford. Living Well itself is a mental health service, governed by Greater Manchester Mental Health Trust (GMMH) and delivered by the NHS and VCSE organisations working together in partnership. My job includes making sure that the team working with people accessing the Living Well service are fully aware and connected to the wider VCSE landscape of support in Salford. Much of this can be done via Wellbeing Matters but I like to add additional opportunities for relationship building and awareness raising.
One of the more creative ways to do this has been by setting up quarterly wellbeing taster sessions for the Living Well staff and partners. The aim is to give the team (which includes GMMH and VCSE workers) the chance to experience first-hand some of the fantastic support offers available in Salford, so that they are even better equipped to help promote the benefit of these offers to their Living Well clients. Themes so far have included Green Spaces, Creative Health and Physical Health activities.
The feedback from people attending these taster sessions has been fantastic; the variety and quality of things on offer to support wellbeing in Salford is truly incredible. Comments included:
“I felt so relaxed and energised following the session”
“A great sense of being with nature with some low intensity exercise for my mental health and physical wellbeing. I feel like my mental outlook was much more positive for the rest of the day”
“It was so good to have access to a brilliant community asset and see the potential for clients. The environment was perfect”
“It was fun and a great opportunity to see where we can refer people to and have first-hand experience of the venue/ offer”
If you have a community offer that enhances wellbeing or offers mental health support to people in Salford and would like to run a taster session for the Living Well team, please get in touch with Hannah.flint@salfordcvs.co.uk to discuss arranging a visit (some funding support is available for this)
We have also set up monthly online meetings for the team to hear from VCSE sector groups and organisations across Salford on various themes relevant to the experiences of our Living Well clients; topics so far have included offers for Young People, Domestic Abuse support and Physical Health activities. The topics are chosen in response to the needs of the people accessing the service. Upcoming themes include Homelessness, services for Refugees and Asylum seekers and gender specific offers. Again, if you would be interested in attending on a topic relevant to you, please contact Hannah.
You may already be aware of the Vocal: Wellbeing, Health and Social Care | Salford CVS forum but I would encourage you to join if you are in any way engaged in mental health support and are not already involved. We are currently exploring setting up a one-off event to bring together VCSE groups and organisations, specifically supporting mental health and wellbeing in Salford, and possibly even a practitioner mental health network as a subgroup of this Vocal forum. If you would be interested in this, please fill out this quick survey to register your interest by clicking this link
For those of you interested in helping shape the future of specialist mental health teams in Salford, I would love to talk to you about supporting you or your organisation to engage with this process. The newly refreshed Greater Manchester Mental Health strategy is very clear that the voices of lived experience and VCSE sector providers need to be embedded in the design of services and there are various mechanisms in place locally to support this. I would be very happy to help connect those organisations or individuals with insight and experience in specialist mental health services to the design process, if you are not already involved.
Basically my message is: please get in touch if any of the above is of interest to you! Thanks for reading and for all the fantastic work you already do, Salford really is an incredibly vibrant place J
contact us
sign up
Join us
