Community Mental Health Transformation funding supports local Third Sector organisations to expand their services
The Community Mental Health Transformation (CMHT) programme, led by Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership NHS Trust (CWPT), has provided an Innovation Fund worth £300,000 and distributed to 14 local Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise partners across Coventry and Warwickshire.
Community mental health services play a crucial role in delivering mental health care for adults and older adults with severe mental health needs as close to home as possible. The CMHT Programme is bringing together experience and support from all sectors across Coventry and Warwickshire and recognises how well placed the passion and influence of local organisations are to drive forward new community-based services.
These groups are already providing invaluable support in our communities. By working in partnership, and collaborating across organisations, we can ensure that more people who need support can be reached, and that improved mental health services offer more choice and control for people living with mental health challenges. The evidence is clear that this joined up way of working means better quality of life for people accessing services and this new funding means there will be more options for people to get the right help, in the right way for them. Teams working together across all sectors also means that people accessing services only have to tell their story once.
Dominic Cox, Director of Strategy and Development at Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership NHS Trust said, “Across Coventry and Warwickshire, we have an active, diverse, and vibrant Voluntary Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) sector and are excited about our future collaboration with the VCSE Alliance for Mental Health. This Innovation fund helps us to accelerate the vital contribution of VCSE partners in our journey of transforming our community mental health offer. But our ambitions are bigger still; next year will we invest again into the sector and hope to expand the inclusion of as many VCSE partners as possible in the delivery of trauma-informed care to benefit our local populations and reduce the health inequalities gap.”
Organisations were able to apply for up to £25,000 per project. As part of the application process, they were required to outline how the project would have a positive impact on the mental health or wellbeing of residents in Coventry and Warwickshire. The successful projects will provide a trauma-informed service or have a trauma-informed way of working; this is a keystone of the Community Mental Health Transformation. In simple terms, trauma-informed means that people are asked “what has happened to you?” rather than “what is wrong with you?”.
The organisations receiving funding will cover a wide range of projects that will offer bereavement support, support for refugees, BAME communities and other seldom-heard groups, support for people experiencing homelessness, for parents of young children, for people in financial hardship and for people who are struggling with loneliness and social isolation.
We look forward to sharing more about the brilliant achievements of these 14 projects soon. For more information, please contact Eleanor Nunn at E.Nunn@vacoventry.org.uk