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In this issue:
Recent Regional ANNUAL CONFERENCES:
Other Resources and Services:
Conference Season
During February and March we held our three biggest Regional Conferences of the year.
These were all fully-attended, large-scale events, each providing a forum for
- sharing knowledge and good practice
- hearing from leading practitioners and speakers in each subject area and
- networking with fellow professionals
Feedback from all of the events was overwhelmingly very positive and our website features coverage of their highlights, including presentations and films from all of the key speakers, presentations from workshops and also films of 'instant feedback' from attendees captured on the day.
To view all of the above, please use the following links:-
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New Older People's Mental Health West Midlands Resource Library
This month we have published this new resource 'library', which has been requested by regional Mental Health Commissioners and consists of sections including:
- Day Services and Day Hospital Provision
- Community Mental Health Teams (Older People)
- Psychiatric Liaison Services
- Psychological Services
- Care Home Liaison
- Support for Carers
- ... and more
It can usefully be read alongside the 2005 CSIP document 'Everybody`s Business'. It aims to be a 'first port of call' for information on contemporary thinking in Older People's Mental Health services and can support the refresh of Older People's Mental Health strategy documents.
For more details, and to download a copy, please go to: http://www.wmrdc.org.uk/opmh
'Creating Capable Teams PLUS'
NHS West Midlands RDC has developed a new approach to the tried and tested delivery of (The Daprtment of Health's) ‘Creating Capable Teams Approach’. CCTA Plus combines the traditional methodology with emerging trends in service imnprovement. It is a way of helping teams to reflect on their current and future capabilities and skill mix and so help to deliver new ways of working, improvements, innovations and efficiencies.
CCTA Plus is an ‘off the shelf’, 5-step approach to ultimately improve how teams meet the needs of service users and carers and it was designed to be used in all areas of Mental Health, across Health and Social Care services in the statutory, voluntary and independent sectors. The resources and tools are also availalable via an online resource page to support people to facilitate the methodology.
For full information please go to: http://www.wmrdc.org.uk/cctaplus
Contact Programme Specialists: Paul Dodd or Duncan Henderson
Developing Mental Health Trainers and 'IAPT'
NHS West Midlands Health Trainer and Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programmes have invited West Midlands colleagues working in Improving Access to Psychological Therapies / Primary Care Mental Health Services to participate in the Health Trainer and Mental Health Development package.
This package has been developed from work with two participating areas in the West Midlands and provides tried and tested methodologies.
What does the package provide?
1. A two-day development programme where representatives from Health Trainer and IAPT/PCMH Services within two localities are brought together to:
- develop ways of working together proactively with agreed principles, tools and approaches, utilising a threshold approach.
- get to know each other and understand each other's services and expectations • agree and produce an action plan
2. A one-day consolidation day where representatives who have participated in the development programme come back together to review progress, share developments and plan next steps.
3. Participation in a two-day Mental Health First Aid awareness-raising programme.
Signing up to the Development Programme will entitle Health Trainer Services to receive free MHFA training. Receiving MHFA training or equivalent will be a requirement for Health Trainer services to participate in the Development programme.
For more information;
- visit http://www.wmrdc.org.uk/mental-health/health-trainer-and-iapt-developmental-programme, or
- Contact: Programme Specialist Kate O`Hara.
How Storytelling Improves Services
WMRDC has worked alongside local IAPT (Improving Access to Psychological Therapies) early implementation sites to capture positive evidence of their journey in implementing local IAPT services. Shropshire, Stoke, North Staffordshire and Wolverhampton have worked on the project and many very telling experiences have been shared. The evidence/narratives collated have been captured and presented - with an explanation of the narrative-based approaches used - in an expansive report, and demonstrated in workshops at the IAPT regional conference in March.
We are very confident that this material can be extremely valuable for other (IAPT and other) services across the West Midlands. Comments from those who took part include:
- "This day has been inspirational"
- "This has reminded me what a good team this is"
- "Changed from being negative to positive now"
For a copy of the report, an explanation of the processes, and an overview of the conference workshops, please go to the following web page (and follow the links where necessary):
please go to http://www.wmrdc.org.uk/iaptstories
Contact: Mark Rayne or Kevin Heffernan
Making the most of our Website
To help you navigate our website more easily, we have recently audited the available resources, and in particular enhanced the searching facilities by means of 'tags'.

For an explanation and examples of search capabilities across the site, please go to http://www.wmrdc.org.uk/searching
Contact Knowledge Sharing Lead: Martin Fisher
Links to other newsletters from around the Region:
- West Midlands Regional Health Partnership
- West Midlands Joint Improvement Partnership
(Adult Social Care at the Regional Improvement & Efficiency Partnership) - Living Well West Midlands
WMRDC Links:-
More regular regional & national Health News
Finally, we also invite you to subscribe to an automatic (RSS) feed of more frequent, one-off news items from our website. To do this, go to http://www.wmrdc.org.uk/rss
Main NHS West Midlands website: www.westmidlands.nhs.uk
Please send any comments or other feedback on this Service Improvement Digest to SID@wmrdc.org.uk

