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We are deeply saddened by the death of Her Majesty the Queen. She served our community and nation with dedication, love and devotion. We hold in our thoughts the King, the Royal Family, all who mourn and all distressed by this sad news.
Paul Hunt, Chair of Healthy Minds Healthy Minds' offices will be closed on Monday 19th September and scheduled activities during the day will be postponed.
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We hope you are keeping well and have had a nice summer! We have so much to share with you about all the wonderful things happening at Healthy Minds.
Join us for Suicide Prevention Day this Saturday at Morrisons Elland, for our celebration of Recovery & Support in the Upper Valley on Saturday 25 Sept, or for our Marathon finish line party at Woolshops on Sunday 2 October. A little late into your inbox, but find all the latest news from Healthy Minds here... This month's newsletter contains important news that many will find upsetting, but we at Healthy Minds remain resolved to supporting our communities as we have been for the past 13 years, and you will see from other news that lots of good things are still happening.
We are so grateful to have passionate, talented and kind people involved in our organisation keeping us hopeful and committed to the future. We want to thank all of you for your support and kindness in these difficult times. Spotlight Development Grants Programme
Healthy Minds is working in collaboration with Rethink Mental Illness to tackle mental health inequalities in Calderdale and to shine a spotlight on the organisations which work with those who do not usually access services Upper Calder Valley worker Sam has put these resources together for you to get the most out of summer.
Click the buttons below to download the pdfs: Healthy Minds Recovery & Support Service has been running for over 8 years, offering a wide range of support to help people achieve and maintain a better state of emotional health and wellbeing. We have several peer support groups throughout Calderdale, along with courses, workshops and advice drop-in sessions. Around 4000 people have benefited from this valuable support over the years and over 300 are currently supported by the team. Recovery & Support has become recognised as an important element in Calderdale’s mental health “system”, as an alternative to, or in addition to, NHS and Council mental health services.
Despite this, we have not been able to secure ongoing funding for Recovery & Support and we have no choice but to close the service at the end of September. This affects both the Upper Valley and Halifax-based Recovery & Support teams. This is a huge loss to all of us at Healthy Minds, to the staff team who have invested so much energy in all the service has achieved over the years, to Calderdale's mental health services and, above all, to people who are supported by the service. The team has built a presence in some communities that helps bring people together and keeps people safe. We believe that Recovery & Support still has a vital role in Calderdale but we cannot continue to fulfil this role without funding. It is frustrating to be forced to close a service at a time when we can see that people need more emotional support. The charity sector is facing difficulties in the wake of the Covid pandemic: funders’ priorities have changed and there is more competition than ever for less funding, coinciding with increased demand and pressure on services in the NHS as well as charities. Over the past two years, we’ve submitted funding applications totalling over £800,000 but few have been successful in the current climate. We’ve been speaking with funders and Council and NHS commissioners over the past 18 months, warning that the Recovery & Support service was at risk without secure investment; we’ve argued that the service plays a role in local, regional and national strategies on improving mental health and wellbeing, supporting people affected by floods, and helping people cope with life challenges like discrimination and poverty – but none of that has translated into the financial support we and others in the charity sector need to keep vital services going. Although the loss of Recovery & Support will affect people, Healthy Minds is still here and our other services will remain available for the foreseeable future as they have separate funding streams. Between now and September, the team will work with people who come to Recovery & Support to use the resilience and skills they have gained, and connect them with alternative support in Healthy Minds and other organisations where possible. We will continue to do all we can to ensure that anyone who needs it can get support. In the short term, we plan to increase availability of Safespace so that people can have one to one emotional support during the day as well as in evenings. We will explore the possibility of supporting trained volunteers to continue some groups and activities. We can’t say for sure what will happen next but we want to try to find ways to continue what we can or to rebuild this valuable support in some fashion. Of course, the next steps depend on having the resources to do anything and we really need people to get behind us to help figure out what those next steps could be. Healthy Minds’ Chief Officer is involved in ongoing work across West Yorkshire to promote and strengthen the role of organisations like ours in health and other strategies, to gain more recognition and support for what we do. The changes this will achieve won’t happen in time to save Recovery & Support but will hopefully create a more stable footing for charities and community groups in the long-term. Healthy Minds is all about finding ways through challenges and we’re facing one ourselves at the moment – but we remain as committed as ever to providing support for everyone in Calderdale. Summer is truly upon us, we hope you had a happy solstice and have some positive plans for the next couple months as we enjoy the better weather.
An opportunity to get outside more perhaps? Take the little ones out for a picnic? Take some time to nurture your creativity? Whatever it might be, we hope you have a summer full of wellbeing! Better late than never! Apologies our May newsletter is a little later than expected, but we hope you enjoy reading all about what has been happening at Healthy Minds nevertheless.
Read on for all the latest... Spring is officially here!
A time of new beginnings and fast growth, our teams have been working hard to bring the people of Calderdale quality mental health support. Our Recovery & Support team have launched their new April - June programme, our brand new Community Wellbeing workers have started to form relationships with their local areas, and we are busy developing our Calderdale Cares 4 Us project into a longer term, sustainable model of wellbeing provision for workplaces! Plus: WE ARE RECRUITING! We have urgent vacancies available within our Safespace service, find out more and apply here. This month we also remember a special person to us at Healthy Minds. We were deeply saddened to hear of one of our long standing volunteers Sheila Coll. Staff at Healthy Minds remember her life and invaluable contribution to our organisation, read their thoughts here. Read on for all the latest... Staff remember Healthy Minds Volunteer Sheila Coll
"Thinking of Sheila Sheila was one of our longest standing volunteers, in fact, one of our very first volunteers. She was involved with almost every aspect of Healthy Minds and truly committed to the organisation, supporting staff, other volunteers and people who used our services over the years. The recent phrase heard around the office at the moment has been 'where did March GO?'. It has been a jam packed month here at Healthy Minds, from allotment spring cleaning to International Women's Day celebrations, this month has been a whopper! Read all about it...
The spring months are fast approaching, brighter days, longer days and some of those spring flowers are just starting to bloom.
Healthy Minds have been busy launching new projects, welcoming new staff members to our team as well as a brand new cohort of volunteers to support and strengthen our services. AND we have an extra special event for you coming up in March, read on for more details... As we turn the corner towards spring and the light starts to last a little longer each day, we are savouring the things that keep giving us hope and happiness this January. With our growing team of fantastic staff and volunteers, we are ever grateful for one another as we face a new year, full of new challenges, but also new opportunties. We are kicking off the year with some big positives! We have started engaging our Healthy Minds community in our Values, Identity & Future workshops, we've launched training for a brand new cohort of Healthy Minds Volunteers, plus we are absolutely BUZZING about our new Community Emotional Health & Wellbeing project (watch this space!). Keep reading for our latest gorgeousness... We would like to strengthen our board of trustees. We intend on making up to four appointments, which will increase our number to twelve. We are seeking trustees able not only to contribute to board but to undertake commitments outside of full board meetings, such as sub-committee attendance. We welcome applications from all backgrounds, regardless of quantity of experience at board level, to support the board’s drive for quality, inclusive decision making, problem solving and creativity. We want to make our board more inclusive and representative of the Calderdale population; we reflect our population’s diversity in gender, sexual orientation, disability and age, but not ethnicity or religion, noting that 8% of Calderdale is of Pakistani and Muslim heritage. Our existing board has a good range of expertise including local knowledge, experience of mental health and wellbeing issues, finance, governance, commissioning, contracting, diversity and inclusion, human resources management and development, and mental health service delivery. We are keen to add depth to this expertise, and add breadth.
Our final newsletter has arrived! For this edition, we want to spotlight our wonderful Volunteers, service users and fabulous fundraisers for all their support over a challenging year.
We've also put together some useful local information, contacts and resources about staying safe and keeping well over the Christmas/winter period on our website here. Please share this with anyone who might need this information this December. |
