HUBB & Mental Health First Aid

An article on HUBB delivering the Mental Health First Aid programme appeared in the London South Bank University magazine 'Communiversity'.

Christmas Office Hours

HUBB OFFICE HOURS

Christmas and New Year 2009/2010

Thursday 24th Dec (Christmas Eve) - 9.00 am - 1.00 pm

Friday 25th Dec (Christmas Day) - CLOSED

Monday 28th Dec - CLOSED

Tuesday 29th Dec - 9.00 am - 4.00 pm

Wednesday 30th Dec - 9.00 am - 4.00 pm

Thursday 31st Dec (New Years Eve) - 9.00 am - 1.00 pm

Friday 1st Jan 2010 (New Years Day) - CLOSED

We return to our usual hours on Monday 4th January 2010!

Understanding the Mental Capacity Act

The Social Care Institute for Excellence is continuing to update its series of excellent videos on the website 'Social Care TV'. The series includes a couple of useful programmes on Mental Capacity, Safeguarding, and Personalisation. Of particular use to those looking to understand and interpret the MCA are the Key Points provided below each video clip.

There is also an excellent Mental Capacity Act Resource linked to the site. This provides a very clear synopsis of the Act itself.

Also in the news is 'New Horizons - A shared vision for Mental Health'. This brings together ideas for Mental Health provision for the future. Recovery, Wellbeing and Personalisation are featured heavily.

Early Intervention in Depression

The Governement officially launches it's Mental Health strategy through a number of publications. Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health has more information and the 'New Horizons' document can be downloaded in full.

HUBB has spent the past 12 months promoting the Mental Health First Aid and is pleased to see that Job Centres will be allocating specialised people to work with individuals dealing with mental ill health. The BBC has an interesting article on this subject.

Hopefully this news will galvanise an awareness of how important maintaining positive mental health is. Having a Mental Health First Aider in every workplace, as we have a physical First Aider, will go a long way to helping prevent mental ill health, especially depression and anxiety created by stress. Having a person, or persons, with some knowledge to help point people having difficulties in the direction of both self-help and professional help can make a big difference to preventing long term difficulties. This is not only of great value to the individuals concerned but also makes very sound business sense. Enabling people to maintain working will also reduce the pressure and stress of those having to do extra work when an individual is off.

Perhaps a good question to ask in any organisation is 'Do I want my son/daughter to come and work here?' If the answer is 'No!' then the next questions to be asked should be around working out why, and putting strategies in place to turn the answer to a resounding 'YES!'

Contact HUBB for more information on Mental Health First Aid.

December Monthly Meeting

The HUBB Monthly Meeting took place at Romford Baptist Church on 3rd December. As this is the last before Christmas this was our Christmas Party!









As befits these occasions there was plenty of food mixed in with quizes, raffles and silly hats!









The HUBB Chair entered into the spirit looking particularly dashing in his head gear.







Once again 'Jess' was centre of attention...although her attention was on the food!







The next Monthly Meeting will be on January 7th 2010 at the usual venue - ROMFORD BAPTIST CHURCH - Main Road, Romford (Next to ASDA). We look forward to meeting you there.

We wish you well for the Festive Season.

Disability Day

HUBB took part in the Disability Day at St George's Hospital, Hornchurch on 2nd December.

The event was hosted by Frances Pennell-Buck, Interim Chair of Havering PCT. Guest speaker was Para-Olympian archer John Cavanagh. John described, in a very humble manner, how he became restricted to a wheelchair after a skiing accident in Switzerland and how life took him into the new arena of archery. Accepting circumstances at one level but pushing and driving at another to great achievements.
He took up archery once his condition had stablised and progressed through the ranks to represent Great Britain at Athens (2004) where he won Gold and Beijing (2008) where he won Silver. John is looking to emulate these achievments in London 2012.What was obvious was how a positive mental attitude and setting goals helped with managing a disability. What was not so obvious was just how heavy those gold and silver medals are!

HUBB Website Update

The HUBB Website is being updated.

We now have a page that provides access to useful Capacity Assessment downloads for Havering and Barking and Dagenham. On the same page are Safeguard Alert forms for these two London Boroughs.

The website gives an overview of HUBB Advocacy Services, including Independent Mental Capacity Advocates (IMCA) and Independent Mental Health Advocates (IMHA). The Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DOLS) page outlines this element of the Mental Capacity Act and provides information on the training HUBB provides.

'Personalisation' is starting to make its presence felt in and around services for Mental Health. Advocacy will form an important part of this process. Although in its embryonic stage we are developing a Personalisation section to the website.

HUBB's Training & Development department is in demand. In the last month we have been running Mental Health First Aid courses, DOLS training, Recovery Star programmes, amongst others.

2010 looks like being a busy year!

HUBB Goes Blogging!

To keep you up to date with HUBB developments as well as any news that may be of use to people involved in any area of Mental Health - the 'HUBBlog' is now alive!

We will be running it in conjunction with our website www.hubbmentalhealth.co.uk

News and upcoming events will appear on this blog but the main resource will be the website.