FREE Mental Health First Aid Course

Get trained and qualified in Mental Health First Aid for free. Identify, understand and respond to signs of mental illnesses.

Support friends, family, and colleagues.

Our free online course is helping to build a culture of care that gives you the skills to support others with mental health problems and protect your own mental health…

Join thousands of learners

The course is accredited by NCFE has given people across the country the opportunity to understand mental health and its associated care. 

Explore different types of mental ill-health and feel confident helping someone experiencing a problem at this crucial time…

Start The FREE Course

 

/by

Vodafone to Provide £4.5m Worth of FREE SIMs to Homelessness Charities

Vodafone has pledged to provide the SIMs – more than 50,000 in total – through its charities.connected programme. Read more on the UK Fundraising website.

/by

West London Local Chambers Business Awards – Free to Enter!

Please find below the link to the West London Local Chambers Business Awards.  Free to enter for all businesses based in the West London Local Chambers boroughs:

Ealing, Hounslow & Hammersmith & Fulham.

The gala dinner takes place on 24th November at Clayton Hotel, Chiswick.

Apply for the Business Awards 2021/2022! (constantcontact.com)

 

/by

FREE Courses for September – Skills to Support Children with Mental Health

The influence of individual teachers on pupils’ mental health is as significant as their influence on academic test scores.

Mental health problems affect a student’s energy level, concentration, dependability, mental ability, and optimism, hindering performance.

Our free online training explores the risk factors that affect a child’s mental health and investigates behaviours displayed by pupils in need

of support.

Start the new term with the skills needed to support children with mental health concerns…

Start the Free Course

/by

Bereavement After Suicide Forum 9th September 2022

World Suicide Prevention Day and the theme Creating Hope through Action, North West London Suicide Prevention Programme will be exploring barriers to accessing support for people bereaved by suicide with a hybrid event.

“When you lose someone to suicide, the grief that you experience can be very intense and the emotions you feel can differ from the grief you experience following any other kind of death.” Samaritans recognises that those who are bereaved by suicide are a particularly vulnerable group who need support.

This topic is linked in with World Suicide Prevention Day because those bereaved by suicide are a group at risk and often overlooked.

  • Mo from Inquest will set the scene for our panel by speaking to the institutional response families have to contend with after a suicide and the complexities of seeking support. 
  • A representative from The Met will share current responses and challenges faced in signposting to bereavement services.
  • Ben from The New Normal Charity will discuss the stigma and taboos associated with mental health, with a focus on men.
  • John from SoBS will round off the panel by sharing his lived experience and highlighting the difficulties navigating bereavement support after a suicide.

The panel will be followed by a Q+A session.

Helen from MIND will discuss signposting. Every attendee will be receiving a London-specific signposting pack for bereavement support following a suicide.

Flyer

/by

International Day of the Disappeared, by Sharon Tomlin, Sobus Community Organiser

International Day of the Disappeared is held annually on the 30th August. It provides a chance to recognise people who have disappeared through enforcement, conflict, war, inner personal issues and concerns, disasters, involuntary disappearance, modern slavery, human trafficking and for a myriad of other reasons. It is the time when family, friends and loved ones take to reflect and remember the disappearance of a close relative or friend.

I have been personally affected by this. My nephew disappeared in 2016 without a trace. My sister, mother of my nephew Rohan has had no feedback from the police – despite a thorough investigation, community and public authorities on his whereabouts. As a family we mounted a huge campaign to garner information from the public.

For my family and friends, work colleagues of Rohan, the impact has been devastating as over the years as the mental anguish has been slow, we have experienced feelings of hope for his return juxtaposed with crippling fear of venturing to explore the potential reasons for his disappearance and of any potential threats he may have had.

It soon emerges that people have disappeared for complex reasons that affects the wider community that tend to include themselves – for those who return the psychological and physical scars from being dehumanised and or tortured, family and friends who are continuously searching for the truth creating emotional upheaval, fear of exposing the person to threats and other dangers and more.

As a family, we sought support from a local and national organisation. As a Community Organiser for Sobus, I have had the privilege of working with members of the Refugee and Asylum communities. To show solidarity for the work and service of organisations committed to supporting friends and families of people who have disappeared, you could get involved in the chat on social media through #DayoftheDisappeared and to raise awareness of the work of existing organisations, see below a list of organisations.

List of local and national organisations

/by
,

Assistive Technology & Artificial Intelligence in Care & Support, by Shad Haibatan Sobus Head of Organisational Development

Assistive technology and use of artificial intelligence is increasingly being developed to support people with disabilities both physical and cognitive. The potential is seen as enormous in not only making people more independent and improving their quality of life but also in meeting the care challenges we currently face.

There are however also ethical issues to be considered in the development and use of this technology. These include:

  • How accessible will this technology be to most people
  • whether artificial intelligence will in fact lead to reduced independence
  • whether they will be increased isolation and less human contact

The development of these technologies does require understanding and participation of individuals and communities in a co-produced framework, particularly as it may lead to a profound change in how care is delivered to the most vulnerable in our communities.

Sobus has been engaging with this issue through it’s POPS (Providers of Older People’s Service) Forum. We have had speakers involved in the Minder Study based at Imperial College White City Campus, which is involved in a study on assistive technology for people with dementia. The potential benefits for assistive technology are indeed enormous and should be supported but it also important to include wider ethical and human considerations.

For more information or participation in the Minder Study please see following summary of the project:

Minder Study

In 2019, there were 748,000 people living with dementia in England. This population typically has complex care needs, placing considerable strain on the health and social care systems as well as on individuals themselves and their carers/families – at an estimated total cost to the UK of £37.4 billion a year.

MINDER is a remote care platform that aims to improve the quality of life for people with dementia and their carers. It uses home sensors to detect an individual’s activity at home, and builds a model of ‘usual activity’ through use of artificial intelligence, allowing any deviations to be detected and flagged for follow-up, enabling early prevention. Minder has been developed by the research team at the UK DRI Care and Research Centre based at Imperial College London and the University of Surrey, in partnership with Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust.

For more information contact minder.hfp@nhs.net

or visit https://mindermeetingplace.com

/by

Upcoming Youth Events at Dawes Road Hub

Youth Conversation on Mental Wellbeing 
Friday, 12th August 2022
1pm to 3pm
You Matter

FIFA Tournament for 13-18 yrs
Bank Holiday Monday, 29 August 2022
1pm to 4pm
Films Food FIFA Event

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

/by

Capacity Building – Where are You? by Nigel Jacques, Sobus Head of Organisation Development & Enterprise

 Have you seen the capacity building page on our website Organisational Development – Sobus ?

All organisations are on a journey of development. The question is, where are you and what do you need to consider to develop the organisation?

In broad terms, we have identified 5 stages that organisations need to go through to ensure their sustainability, or even their continued survival, especially with the current economic climate.

So in this newletter, we are looking at Stage 1, the first level of development. This is primarily for those starting out. At this stage it is about being appropriately constituted and having a group of trustees that are enabling the organisation to think ahead and plan. Additionally, if money is being brought into the organisation, there needs to be a form of accounting that enables the Board to see what is there, analyse what is happening and what needs to happen next. In terms of the work that is being carried out, the Board will also need to understand the risks involved, especially as the financial position of most organisations starting out is risky in itself. The Board will need to understand these risks to help them plan ahead. Of course, if you have looked beyond Stage 1 the organisation, having done all these things, will be on their way to achieving Stage 2.

If you want to discuss this to establish where you are on your organisation’s journey of development, please contact Nigel  nigel.jacques@sobus.org.uk

 

/by