Hackney signs up to the Prevention Concordat for Better Mental Health
The Council, health partners and voluntary and community groups will sign up to a national agreement to help improve mental health and wellbeing for residents in Hackney.
Hackney’s Health and Wellbeing Board will sign the Prevention Concordat for Better Mental Health. This is an agreement outlining a series of actions that the Council, NHS health partners and local organisations can take to ensure there is better collaboration to improve mental health care, promotion and prevention.
Cllr Feryal Demirci, Cabinet Member for Health, Social care, Transport and Parks, and Chair of Hackney’s Health and Wellbeing Board said: "We can and should all be working together to promote good mental wellbeing. Signing up to the Concordat means that we as a partnership, will be able to work better to ensure that the Council and all our partners focus on helping our residents stay mentally healthy."
The Council, health partners and Hackney’s Public Health team are already taking action to promote positive mental health in the borough. City and Hackney Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), the Council and health and community services have been promoting positive mental wellbeing and providing resources and training to frontline staff to support residents’ wellbeing. This includes providing Mental Health First Aid training and promoting Hackney’s Five to Thrive campaign.
Councillor Tom Rahilly, Hackney’s Mental Health Champion said: “We are committed to making Hackney a place where everyone can enjoy good mental health and wellbeing. It is an issue that will affect all of us at some point in our lives. We want to promote the steps that everyone can take to support their own mental health and wellbeing and reduce the stigma around mental health meaning that people feel more confident in taking action and asking for help when they need it. Signing the Concordat will enhance the work that we are already doing to support these aims and help demonstrate the difference we can make by working together.”
"We can and should all be working together to promote good mental wellbeing. Signing up to the Concordat means that we as a partnership, will be able to work better to ensure that the Council and all our partners focus on helping our residents stay mentally healthy"
Hackney’s Mental Health Action Plan
A joint Council and City and Hackney CCG Public Mental Health steering group, chaired by Cllr Rahilly, oversees Hackney’s Public Mental Health Action plan. The action plan commits to action across five key areas that contribute towards making Hackney a place where everyone can enjoy good mental health.
Action 1: Work to prevent suicide and self-harm
Action 2: Work to ensure that the built local environment promotes positive mental wellbeing and creates mentally healthy places
Action 3: Make Hackney the most welcoming, healthy, and accessible place in London for residents with severe and enduring mental health conditions by March 2018
Action 4: A series of ‘Life Events’ support packs that provide ideas, advice, phone numbers, video clips etc. of how to be mentally resilient in times of change or stress
Action 5: Deliver a child-centred, prevention-focused health and wellbeing education service that builds the resilience of all children and young people in Hackney aged 5-19 years, and up to 25 years for those with additional needs
Hackney’s Five to Thrive campaign #ThriveHackney
Five to Thrive is a local campaign, based on the New Economic Foundation’s Five Ways to Wellbeing. These are five simple steps that can help improve people’s personal mental wellbeing. In Hackney it has been used by different health organisations, schools and community projects as a way to connect people and communities and improve mental health.
The Five Ways to Wellbeing are:
Connect - Connect teaches us to reach out to our friends, families, colleagues and neighbours through fun activities or just by having a chat
Keep Learning - Keep Learning encourages us to try something new or rediscover and develop an old skill.
Be Active - Be Active explains the benefits of remaining active, whether it’s taking part in a walk in a park or a fast pace dance class
Give - Give demonstrates the importance of contributing to society and emphasises the importance that fulfillment can have to our mental health
Take Notice - Take Notice links to mindfulness techniques aiming to connect people to their environments and encourage everyday reflection.
Campaign activities and resources are here.
Hackney is also committed to becoming a dementia-friendly borough. For more information on our work to make the borough dementia friendly, click here.