We are delighted to tell you about a new five year Thrive project we have begun to develop in Edinburgh.
The project – Carer Experience and Engagement with Mental Health Services – will encourage and support carer engagement in the design, delivery and review of mental health services across Edinburgh. Co-producing the project with carers, we will:
- Gather the experiences and views of carers across Edinburgh, who care for a person living with a mental health condition.
- Share the findings from this small study with carers, Thrive Collaborative colleagues and wider mental health services. This information will help us develop the carer engagement service.
- Work with carers, volunteers and service providers to develop an ongoing carer engagement service to support individual mental health services to engage with carers more effectively.
This is a fantastic opportunity for anyone caring for a person living with a mental health condition, to really get involved to shape how mental health services in Edinburgh look and work in the future. You can participate as a carer, mental health service provider or as a volunteer. Ways you can get involved include:
- As a carer of a person with a mental health condition we would like to hear your experiences of and views on mental health services across Edinburgh. We will make it as easy possible for you to do this, using a range of approaches.
- As a carer/volunteer you will be supported to gather carer experiences and views and help share these findings with carers and service providers. Excitingly, you will be trained and supported to work directly with service providers on an ongoing basis to help evaluate and develop their services.
- As a mental health service provider you can get involved by telling us if there is something specific you would like to learn from your carer community and by working with us to obtain carer views about your service to support its development.
Our project website page will go live shortly where we will be sharing more information about the project and how you can get involved …… so please watch this space!
Fiona Barrett is the Carer Engagement Officer for this project and would love to hear from you. Fiona can be contacted at involve@vocal.org.uk