Celebrating innovations in mental health
This month has seen us receive 2 awards for innovations in mental health – the CIR Business Continuity award for strategy through partnership and the Merseyside Innovation Award. We are delighted that our many years of hard work have been recognised!
But why do we need to innovate?
The creation of our blended trauma support programme KRTS Power to Recover® was driven by what we saw as gaps and weaknesses in existing service provision.
Many people were simply not accessing traditional trauma therapies because of
- Stigma – the considerable challenge of walking through the door and sitting down with a mental health professional
- Preference – they didn’t identify as someone who needed / wanted to talk about their experience
- Location and geographical inaccessibility to services
- A desire for privacy particularly where there were issues of feeling shame
- Time inaccessibility – for example, shift work, childcare responsibilities etc
This meant that a huge section of society was simply not accessing effective support and we thought that was wrong. In addition to this, the lack of consistent standards for stabilisation and psychological education meant that those who did access treatments had varied experiences. How many times did we hear – why has nobody told me this before? – when we provided psychological education?
So this innovation came from years of practice and clinical experience.
KRTS Power to Respond® our crisis management App, was similarly driven by the need we saw in the real world:
- After a major incident, often large numbers of people needed to be reached with education and advice on understanding their reactions, how to help themselves and what services were available if they needed more
- Crisis intervention requires different skills and approaches to counselling / therapy yet people were often referred to the latter
- Mental health services had the potential of being overwhelmed by demand and those in need faced lengthy waits
- Family, friends and colleagues were often unsure of what to do to help those affected and often inadvertently did the wrong thing
- Organisations needed to provide simple support immediately and cost-effectively and often didn’t know how to do this or focused on too narrow a group.
We’re really proud to be innovators in the field of mental health after crises and trauma. What we do doesn’t replace existing services but fills gaps in the continuum of care and makes effective interventions accessible to all.