Blogs

On Saturday 10 October, it was World Mental Health Day and we at National Voices are running a series of blogs from member organisations working in this area. The first in the series is from Rebecca Neale, Policy and Communications Officer at the Mental Health Providers Forum (MHPF). In this blog post, Rebecca writes about the work of the MHPF and the invaluable involvement of the voluntary and community sector in the provision of mental health care.

Carol Pearson is a retired chartered accountant. When her full-time career was cut short by complications from severe endometriosis, she had to re-create herself and she now works as an audit chair for NHS Crawley Clinical Commissioning Group. Carol helps as a research assistant at Royal Surrey County Hospital, is a trustee for Endometriosis UK and co-leads endometriosis support groups in Brighton and Guildford. In 2013, Carol shared her story in a talk entitled ‘Rewriting Red Riding Hood’ at TEDxBrighton.

This is the second of our case studies showing the difference Wellbeing Our Way is making for some of the organisations involved in the programme. Here, Lee Marriott-Dowding reflects on how new opportunities for partnership working are supporting her to develop the James Whale Fund for Kidney Cancer’s approaches to working with people with long term health needs.

Lee Robinson is the Director of Bright Ideas Consulting, a consultancy providing innovative, evidence-based strategy, research and financial sustainability support for organisations with a social mission. Bright Ideas has recently been working with National Voices and the Wellbeing Our Way programme to develop the organisation’s approach to sector mapping and impact assessment.