Voluntary and community sector support

There is a range of voluntary and community organisations offering support for people with common mental conditions, as well as those offering social support. Many of these organisations are included on the How Are You (H.A.Y) Website. This section gives an overview of the support provided by some of the largest voluntary sector organisations in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, such as CPSL Mind, but is not comprehensive.

CPSL Mind

CPSL Mind (Cambridgeshire, Peterborough and South Lincolnshire Mind) provides a range of support that promote good mental wellbeing through the Good Life service. This includes:

Good Mood Café: an opportunity to meet new people, to share interests and wellbeing tips in an informal space. Cafes are held in local cafes, outdoors and online.
Calm Spaces: offer places to find guidance on self-help techniques which can help people to ground themselves and feel better, both in that moment and in the future. Calm Spaces are held in local community spaces and online.
Good Life Fund: offers grants of up to £500 to people in our local community to help set up groups that connect people, such as book clubs, craft classes, or activities that encourage people to learn new skills.
Qwell: online support and wellbeing community, which includes self-help resources and chat-based counselling.

CPSL Mind also offers Changing Lives Talking Therapies: counselling and cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) for people experiencing difficulties with their mental health, including group therapy.

Calm Spaces

There was an average of 34 attendances for at Calm Spaces from January to July 2023. The increase in 2023 was due to the inclusion of the Rural Good Life team into the Service and an increase in staff members.

Figure 45: Number of attendances at Calm Spaces, CPSL Mind, May 2022 – July 2023.

Good Life Fund

From August 2022 to July 2023, the co-production team at CPSL Mind approved 32 applications to the Good Life Fund for presentation to the Good Life board.

Good Mood Cafés

The number of attendances at Good Mood Cafés rose substantially from an average of 189 attendances per month in the 2022, to an average of 459 per month from January to July 2023. This increase was due to the inclusion of the Rural Good Life team into the Service and an increase in staff members.

Figure 46: Number of attendances at the Good Mood Cafés, CPSL Mind, May 2022 – July 2023.

There is ongoing work to evaluate this service and collect outcomes from people who have attended Good Life Cafés.

Money Matters Service

From August 2022 to July 2023, the Money Matters Service protected/generated £68,064 for people accessing this service, through welfare benefits, tax credits or grants. This is an average of over £17,000 per quarter.

Qwell

In May to July 2023, 252 people used the online Qwell service.

There were 202 new registrations in this time period. 18% were from men, suggesting that men were much less likely to use this service compared to the general population.
On average, each individual logged in to Qwell on 6 separate occasions. 18% of logins were from people from Black or other ethnic minority groups, a relatively high proportion compared to other mental health services aimed at people with common mental health conditions.
Around two thirds (65%) of logins were made out of hours, suggesting that this service provides an important form of support for at this time.
The most common types of support accessed were messaging and chat-based counselling sessions. Only 4% of people accessed peer support forums.
The feedback was overwhelmingly positive, with 98% of people saying that they would recommend this service.

CHOICES

CHOICES provides trauma-informed counselling throughout Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, for people who have experienced sexual abuse in childhood. This includes specialist counselling, peer support groups and psychoeducation symptoms management sessions.

131 people received counselling in 2021/22. Almost half (95 out of 204) of people seen by this service had been referred from mental health services.
People attending counselling reported reduction in trauma symptoms (flashbacks, panic attacks, nightmares, self-harm, and dissociation) and improved relationships with their immediate family, friends, and work colleagues. Out of people who had previously used drugs, two thirds had stopped drug use completely after attending counselling.
9 in 10 (91%) of people attending individual symptoms management sessions developed positive coping mechanisms and 74% felt better able to make everyday decisions.

References

Full list of references is included at the end of this chapter.