Community Engagement Project

The project aimed to improve the mental health of communities that don’t traditionally engage with mental health services, thus increasing OMH’s reach and ability to serve all communities in Somerset.

Communities of Focus

Initially, the project focused on veterans, displaced people, the neurodivergent community, adults with learning disabilities, the deaf community and people on low incomes.

Spark recruited a team of three part-time Community Engagement Workers and a Project Manager. A Diversity Voice worker was funded four days a week, focusing on connecting with displaced people and migrant workers. SASP workers used sports and physical activity to engage with veterans, displaced people and adults with learning disabilities. They also improved the accessibility of Somerset sports clubs through the Access to Sport training programme.

The Golden Thread: Five Ways to Wellbeing

The golden thread running through the project was Five Ways to Wellbeing. The ‘Five Ways’ are simple, evidence-based steps anyone can take to promote wellbeing. The project had an experienced trainer on the team who created a training course for direct delivery to communities and a short train-the-trainer course.

The course was also adapted for specific communities, including autistic adults, young adults with learning difficulties, people seeking asylum and refugees, and people on low incomes.
Attendees included people living in rural areas, women escaping domestic abuse, a menopause group and people with social anxiety and low/moderate mental health challenges.

Open Mental Health Champions

Open Mental Health Champions were at the heart of the Community Engagement project. Funding has been secured to extend the Champions’ work past the project’s end date and to expand their involvement in OMH.

As a diverse group of 22 people, many from communities that face obstacles accessing mental health services, the OMH Champions act as a bridge connecting OMH to their communities. They ensure that mental health services meet people’s needs. In addition to this ambassadorial role, champions advise OMH on how services can improve.

Among the Champions are individuals who speak English as a second language, unpaid carers, a wheelchair user, a person with ADHD, and one who is partially sighted. Their inclusion is vital, and OMH ensures they are remunerated for their time and expenses. This approach allowed the Community Engagement Project to harness the experience of people who might have otherwise been unable to participate.

From conducting “Five Ways to Wellbeing” sessions in Ukrainian, explaining the challenges different communities experience when seeking mental health support, distributing flyers, engaging with the African descendant community, conversing with migrant workers, to lending their voices as experts by experience in various service support roles, the OMH Community Champions fulfil a vital role.

Walkabouts

Amongst many other activities designed to connect with seldom-heard communities, the Community Engagement Team took a leading role in Open Mental Health walkabouts. Rather than waiting for people to come to them at community events, team members went out to the people. Along with colleagues from different parts of Open Mental Health and Open Mental Health Champions, they distributed flyers and other resources up and down Somerset High Streets.

The team discovered that shops and offices were happy to take information and that people were keen to talk about their mental health. The walkabouts raised awareness of Open Mental Health to hundreds of businesses and resulted in people being signposted directly into mental health services.

Read the End of Project Report

If you’d like to get a better understanding of the Open Mental Health Community Engagement Project, what the team did, why they did it, and what they learned, download the End of Project Report below. It outlines the project’s different elements and includes comprehensive recommendations for improving service.