The strategy highlights the importance of mental health, and maps out how we will work collectively to address rising mental health need and tackle health inequalities.
Our Vision:
“People in North Somerset are enabled and supported to have good mental health and wellbeing and to live well in their communities, via a focus on prevention, early intervention, and targeted action to reduce inequalities”.
We will achieve our mental health vision for North Somerset with a focus on:
- Prevention Preventing mental ill-health before it arises and preventing any worsening of mental health problems as early as possible.
- Early Intervention Identifying mental ill-health as early as possible and intervening early with the right support.
- Supported and living well Supporting individuals in a holistic way so that people with mental ill-health can live well in our communities.
How have we developed the strategy?
Our action plan captures the services, service improvements, learning provision, professional development, and mental health and wellbeing programmes to be implemented across early years settings, schools, workplaces, health and care settings, mental health services, and communities.
All our actions seek to lay the best foundations for good mental health throughout life, provide timely support in a range of settings for people of all ages, and to co-produce services, building on data, insight and ongoing learning.
How will we know we’ve made a difference?
We will monitor progress in implementing our actions and realising our vision regularly, through the North Somerset Mental Health Strategy Board. A refresh of the strategy will be built into the timeline to enable us to review progress and understand any changes we may need to make to meet our targets. We will use data and insight collected through national and local sources to evaluate the impact of our actions and approaches.
Watch our video about the Strategy
We gave a lot of thought to how we wanted to bring our strategy alive and publicise it. We were keen to make it accessible to all. In our minds the best way of doing this was to bring in the voices of those with lived experience of mental ill-health. We approached local organisations, and they helped us find three very special and brave individuals who agreed to share their stories on film and to relate those stories to the three key themes of the strategy – prevention, early intervention and supported and living well.
With a huge thanks to Nigel from the Independent Mental Health Network, Daisy from Portishead Youth Centre and Geoff from Weston Hospicecare, Men in Sheds and of course to Neck of the Woods for their creativity, sensitivity and responsiveness throughout this project.
