Two years of MHAG

Our second year is now coming to a close and as a result we're set to host our annual general meeting at the end of May. If you haven't been along to the group before, it's a great way to find out what we've been up to since last May and what we hope to achieve in the upcoming year. If you have then hopefully you'll join us again for all the updates!

 

Thursday, May 28

7pm

Redditch Town Hall

MHAG AGM

Including: election of officers and allocation of mayoral money (if you have any proposals about how the money we receive from Mayor Pat Witherspoon should be spent please come along and share them!)

 

Any questions? Feel free to e-mail redditchmhag@gmail.com although please be aware there may be a delay in responding due to our volunteer availability at the moment.

Thanks!

Mayoral handover

Things have been very quiet in MHAG land at the moment although all our members are still busy working away on their individuals projects and within their organisations, which is great. It remains to be seen what direction the group will take and that may not be clear for a number of months, mostly due to big 'life things' going on which have had to take priority (not as ominous as it sounds!). But one thing we're very pleased to announce is that next month we'll be going to the official handover of the charity money raised by Mayor Pat Witherspoon during her civic year.

We are hugely grateful for all the work done by Pat, it goes way above and beyond what anyone could expect of the mayor and we know this is because mental health (and dementia which is where the other half of her funds are going) are causes really close to her heart. It's been great having her support and we know that won't stop when she hands over the mayoral chains in May.

An e-mail has been sent out to our contacts today as we'd like to see some of the group coming along to enjoy the occasion with us. If you haven't got the e-mail and you'd like to come along please e-mail redditchmhag@gmail.com or call 07788 379389 before Monday, May 11.

Thanks!

Let's get quizzical

Some of the teams hard at work at our last quiz!

Our last quiz back in October 2013 was great fun and raise some much-appreciated pennies for MHAG! People have been asking when we'll be doing another so we're very excited to announce we'll be hosting a quiz on Friday, March 6. Details are as follows!

Redditch Rugby Club, Bromsgrove Road.

7pm for a 7.30pm start.

Bar open and nibbles available.

Kindly hosted by mayor Pat Witherspoon.

£2 a person and up to six a team.

Prizes for winners, losers and best team name.

Raffle in the interval.

All money will go to MHAG.

Hope to see you there! Let us know you're coming on Facebook here.

Mental health first aid

This month we'll be taking part in a two-day mental health first aid course to learn more about identifying, understanding and helping those who may have a developing problem. The course is essentially the mental health equivalent of a more traditional first aid course in that it can help you recognise the warning signs of ill health.

The course was developed in Australia in 2000 and is now taught in 23 countries, having been delivered to over 77,000 people by 1,000 instructors in England. They also now offer in-house training directly to large organisations.

For more information, click here and we'll update you on how it all went later in the month!

Have your say during the CQC inspection

This is a great opportunity to get your voice heard about mental health care in Worcestershire, so do pop along if you can! Make sure to let them know you're attending using the details below.

Funding for mental health

 Before Christmas, Rethink Mental Illness ran a campaign to stop Monitor (the watchdog for health funding) with its plan to cut mental health budgets next year. A total of 6,703 people including MHAG signed before the consultation ended at midnight on Christmas Eve so a response is imminent. In good news, due to the campaigning of Rethink and others NHS England has now told local health commissioners they need to increase in real terms the amount they spend next year on mental health.

Redditch and Bromsgrove Clinical Commissioning Group have decided to cut their spending on mental health from eight per cent of the budget to just seven per cent by the next financial year (2015/16), whilst because of their overall increase in budget this means around an extra £500,000 will go to mental health. But if they had kept it at eight per cent, there would have been a £1.5million increase so really we're losing out on £1million! In total £14million is spent on mental health while the rest of their £187.2million goes towards physical health. You can read more about this in a story I wrote for the Redditch Standard here.

It is hugely important for us all to fight for better funding for mental health - we all know everything is being squeezed from all aspects of the public sector and there is simply less money to go round. But it is well documented times of austerity breed mental health issues so there are now more people than ever struggling, so we simply cannot let them go without. The link between physical and mental health has also been proven so effectively, putting money into mental health can only help with the pressure on the entire system.

Visit Rethink's website here.