Dear Colleague
A SEMINAR: BME Mental Health & Well Being Seminar – Service User Involvement and Personalisation

Date:  Thursday 3^rd March 2011

Venue: Mushkil Aasaan, First Floor, 222 Upper Tooting Road, London, SW17 7EW

Time:  10.00am –3:30pm

The Asian Health Agency in partnership with South West London and St Georges Mental Health Trust, Open Up Time to Change, Mind and Power Up are organising a seminar to explore the mental health issues

Objectives of Seminar:

• Empowering Black & Ethnic Minority community members particularly service users & carers to have their voices heard.

• To reduce stigma and discrimination and promote Social Inclusion and better mental health care for the BME communities.

• Promoting awareness and sharing latest information on the current state of health & social care of BME people.

• Exploring vital and relevant issues related to user involvement & Personalisation within BME communities.

• Increasing understanding on ways of influencing the decision making process of the local health & social care agenda.

• Developing innovative ways of addressing the existing health & social care inequalities by building new means of partnership and collaboration

• Facilitating opportunities for healthcare professionals to come together with community members and groups to share areas of common interests and concern

Cost

Free but places must be booked in advance.

Please find attached the leaflet on the above seminar:

If you wish to organise a similar event in your area or need further information please contact me on: farah.chaudhry@taha.org.uk

This is a free seminar, however you must book your place in advance.

I shall be grateful if you could circulate it to your colleagues, members, as well as people on your mailing list.

Thank you for your support.

 Kind Regards,

Farah Chaudhry.
BME Leadership & Engagement Project

For further information and to book a place contact:

Farah Chaudhry      020 8981 2146 / 07961 712 392        

farah.chaudhry@taha.org.uk

Jessie Jandu    020 8571 7928  admin2@taha.org.uk

The afternoon will consist of

• A tour of the garden
• a brief overview of Working it Out program and what we are trying to achieve
• Light refreshments
• A chance to meet some of the gardeners and staff for a chat
• Looking at coursework that has been produced each week    

Please come along if you would like to know more about the working it out training and what it offers.  It’s free to residents of Westminster, Wandsworth, Hammersmith and Fulham. Working it Out is specifically for Londoners living with ill mental health. Assisting them to gain a City & Guilds Level 2 in Horticulture and offering access to employment advice and work placements.

The link below is a map of how to get to Thrive Garden

Thrive garden map

You are also welcome to bring along any referrals with you who may be interested in joining the program. Please let me know if you can join us on the 10^th by calling 0207 720 2212 or email isla.ferns@thrive.org.uk  If you could also forward this to your teams it would be most appreciated.

Hope to see you there, kind regards,

Isla

The National Media is plagued with stories of vital charities having their budgets cut by Local Authorities, and Wandsworth is no different. The Council, in what many will see as a misguided attempt to meet budget cuts, have just slashed ¼ million pounds from the funding for some of the Boroughs most valued Voluntary Sector Organisations.

The cuts, which will come into place in April, will see Age Concern losing £83,000 from their budget, Wandsworth Community Transport standing to lose £20,000 and the Care’s Centre will be without £5,000, if proposals go ahead.

The implications of cutting the vital services these organisations provide has far reaching implications as Jenny Weinstein, the Chair of Wandsworth LINk, which is a voice for care users, carers and patients has pointed out:

‘These are very substantial cuts for the Voluntary Care Sector and they will directly impact on some of the most vulnerable people living in Wandsworth. In LINk’s view cutting voluntary sector budgets that provide vital preventive services is short sighted.  It will not only hurt the most needy people in the Borough, but, in the longer term, it will put more pressure on expensive statutory social care and NHS services which are also seeing their budgets slashed… `

Central Government says it wants charities to start providing more services as part of it’s ‘ new ‘Big Society,’ and its right to believe that local and voluntary organisations are often more effective than the State in tackling social problems. But, if cuts like this continue, they will destroy the very organisations which could and should, form the foundations of this new ‘Big Society’.

KUF training has been commissioned by the Department of Health and Ministry of Justice to raise awareness and improve the skills of those who treat or come into contact with people with PDs.  The 3-day awareness level course is now being rolled out across London and we are looking for people who may like to attend.  This will include service users and carers with experience of personality disorder who might be interested in going on to train as trainers later on. 

 Please note that the course includes online learning and people will need to be able to access a computer between the 3 facilitated days.

If you are interested in attending this course please contact Diana Menzies on diana.menzies@swlstg-tr.nhs.uk, tel. (020) 7622 9337 by Monday 10 May.

The next 3-day course will run on

Tuesday 25 May, Wednesday 23 June and Tuesday 20 July 2010.

For a detailed training prgramme please click here. KUF awareness level training