As reported in our first blog, we started an exciting partnership with St. Christopher’s Hospice in January for two pilot projects.
As work on these projects proceed over the next few months we asked the charity Mind to suggest a project within their current strategy and vision that they believe will be transformational for the people and communities they serve. One of our trustees has supported the work of Mind for some time now, so we know about their long history as a leading a mental health charity.
We are now happy to be a partner in a co-funding arrangement with Mind.
The project meets one of our most important criteria, working to develop scalable ways of operating that seeks to reduce costs and have a bigger impact.
The Mind project is innovative, even though digital and automated solutions have been around for some time. Its innovation stems from being able to provide supported self-help – it is an early intervention service aimed at supporting people with low to moderate mental health needs, who may find it difficult to access mental health services in a timely manner. Individuals can take the first step in changing their lives better.
This is important because Mind knows that only a small proportion of the people who would benefit from mental health support are receiving it. This means that 1.6m people in England alone are on waiting lists for specialised mental health treatment, and research has shown that 1 in 3 of these will experience a decline in mental health whilst waiting for treatment.
This project has the ability to deliver mental health support at scale and early, which is a real win for the individual and society.
Mind’s new project: supported self-help
The project is a form of ‘facilitated’ or ‘guided’ self-help, where participants will have access to a combination of one-to-one sessions with a practitioner as well as helpful tools and strategies in workbooks and self-management resources. All participants will have access to a 40-minute initial assessment followed by six 20-minute sessions with a trained practitioner over a six-eight week period, based on cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) approaches. As a standard, practitioner sessions will be delivered remotely. However, there will be an option for face-to-face delivery for those who request it.
By offering people access to support at an early stage, supported self-help can help prevent people’s mental health problems from escalating, improve their outcomes and help to reduce longer-term health service costs by limiting the need for more intensive interventions.
The transformational digitalisation of this programme is a new innovative and central feature of the service. Development and evaluation of a new digital portal will enable Mind to extend the universal offer of service across England, Wales and Channel Islands reaching thousands of people over the coming years. However, it is the combination of a sophisticated digital portal allowing user-friendly access to a service, and enabling client choice, but delivered by real practitioners, that is so important.
It will allow people to quickly assess if this is the right service for them by answering the bespoke set of questions. They will then be able to self-refer in the privacy of their own space if that is the right service for them. They can also be referred by a healthcare professional.
Integration with the client management system will enable appointment bookings, workforce management and the sending of confirmation emails or texts to the user which will improve user experience. It will lead to greater cost-effectiveness, with more available funding going to delivery rather than back-office functions allowing Mind to support more people offering help at the right time and the right place.
It will also allow Mind to track the user journey and evaluate its effectiveness and success.
Mind is grateful for the trust and investment from the trustees of Great Causes II for part-funding our digital offering and ensuring people experiencing mental health problems receive timely support when they need it most.
Gavin Atkins, Acting Associate Director of Communities at Mind, said: ’We’re delighted to be working with Great Causes II championing our mutual passion for mental health and drive for innovation in developing cost effective early support digital offering as part of the supported self-help programme. We’re excited to partner with an ally whose values align with our own. Together we can build on the success of programme delivery in Wales to scale the project and reach more people in a way that works for them. We’re looking forward to working with the Great Causes II Trustees and learning from their previous experiences in both the business and charitable sectors. We want to ensure the model we develop is adaptable, scalable and delivers long lasting transformational change to how people access mental health support when they need it most. It will be particularly compelling for us in reaching our strategic priority audiences – children and young people, those in poverty, and people in racialised communities.’
