Today I got to attend a meeting on behalf of Good Things Foundation, discussing along with
Sheffield Flourish , how the Sheffield Mental Health Guide website should & could redesign their urgent care/ help needed page.
I went along as a member of staff from our Charity Good Things Foundation as not only someone interested in social inclusion & how digital Skills can have an impact, as well as a service user with a personality disorder that has been, & no doubt will be again at a point of crisis.
The team creating this page are ambitious & their target audience, everyone! That’s a big ask & today was just a starting point to gather some ideas. As a cross-sector group we looked at so many things including: layout, colours, user journey, content, even the definition of urgent care & crisis. Each person in the room had valid reasons to be there & each had varying opinions.
For me I came away with some fresh knowledge & a new contact in Jo Eckersley, Deputy Managing Director
Rethink – a 24 hour helpline when you can call someone to talk, 0808 801 0440
SPA Single Point of Access (SPA) for Adult Community Mental Health Services. This is a new service which started in Sheffield towards the end of 2017.
Finally I learnt that 999 really is there if you or others are in serious danger or risk of life. The crisis teams in individual areas are so much better resourced & trained to handle someone with ill mental health at a crisis point.
I’m looking forward to working more with Sheffield Flourish & the
team as they try to help everyone. 1 in 4 people have a mental health condition, & having been on the mental health first aid course, everyone is on the scale of mental health, whether it be well, ill or somewhere in between. It’s just like physical health & so the number is probably higher, but certainly everyone will come into contact with someone struggling their mental health.
To have one stop shop is an ambitious task, but having looked at other examples of similar sites for other areas, it was great to see lots of people trying to solve the same problems, in different ways & for different reasons.
I find it hard to believe there is an answer to everything, but I know believe there are a lot of people out there looking for it.
sarahsthinkingagain 