Tackling Inequalities in Mental Health
In October 2020, Space to Breathe were delighted to be awarded part of a Sheffield-wide project in Tackling Inequalities in Mental Health across the city. We worked with Sheffield NHS and the Sheffield Community Forensic Team and partnering with Sheffield Flourish, SADACCA and Faithstar.
The Tackling Inequalities in Mental Health project aimed to address inequalities in Mental Health support for people in Black, Asian and Ethnic Minority communities in Sheffield. For example, 19.2% of the Sheffield population is from a BAME background, just under half (46%) of the Sheffield secure inpatient population are.
Space to Breathe provided online, face to face and collaborative support to share mindfulness skills, self-care techniques and grounding tools to people within the Social Care system. 40 individuals helped so far, many of whom now discharged and living in the local community.
“All of the people I work with have given positive feedback about their sessions with Andy, describing them as good, positive and useful. The sessions support the conversations and overall work that we are trying to move towards with people in terms of resilience building and developing coping strategies for discharge into the community/ community life. Andy has made the service flexible and easy to engage with which makes all the difference for our service users.”
(a Social Worker involved in the project)
Watch the launch video from October 2020, featuring Andy Freeman sharing more about the project and what we aimed to do.
The project has developed a number of projects which continue, including the Wellbeing Hub and our Buddy Scheme. These were both provided in Sheffield, free at point of access. You can find the independent evaluation of the project and our own impact reports below.
This project is a partnership between Space to Breathe, the Sheffield Community Forensic Team, Sheffield Flourish, SADACCA and Faithstar. We are deeply grateful for these partnerships and for the work we can do together. To find out more and to enquire about working with Space to Breathe, contact Andy Freeman at andy@spacetobreatheuk.com.
You can find out more here.
Despite the increased profile and publicity of mental health, there are still many people who have to live with their condition in a hidden way - either because of stigma and shame or because of barriers that stop them. In 2022, Space to Breathe want to do more to break these barriers and provide greater support to people struggling with their mental health. Read on.