An Island-wide ‘listening tour’ gets underway this month encouraging people to talk about their mental health and wellbeing during the past 18 months.
Healthwatch Isle of Wight has launched the Mental Health Listening Tour in partnership with Michael Lilley, the Isle of Wight Council’s Mental Health Champion, to reach out to Island communities to hear from people directly about their experiences of the pandemic and its impact on their mental health and wellbeing.
The feedback will be published in a report next Spring which will be shared with key services on the Island, including the Isle of Wight Council, the Isle of Wight NHS Trust and the Island’s Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Partnership.
Healthwatch Isle of Wight manager, Joanna Smith, said the report would celebrate good practice as well as highlight any gaps in services. She said:
“Mental health and wellbeing are important for all people and were chosen by the public as a priority topic for Healthwatch Isle of Wight in our prioritisation survey earlier this year.
“We know the COVID-19 pandemic has affected Islanders in many different ways — social isolation, the stress of enforced quarantines, lack of routine. This, coupled with home schooling and financial pressures, has led to an awareness that mental health and wellbeing were potentially another ‘unseen’ victim of the pandemic.
“We are delighted therefore, to be working closely with the Isle of Wight Council’s mental health champion, Councillor Michael Lilley, to spend time with local people within their local communities speaking to them about their experiences during the pandemic.
“Following our listening tour, we will be feeding back to key services to ensure that the voice of local people is heard and used to improve health outcomes for everyone.”
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The tour starts its journey in the West Wight on 18th October at The Annex, behind Christ Church, New Road, Totland. This will be followed by sessions at Ventnor Anxiety Cafe, Salisbury Gardens on 25th October; the West Wight Sports and Community Centre, Freshwater on 2nd November and Carers Isle of Wight, Riverside Centre, Newport on 4th November.
Full details, as well as further dates and venues, will be posted on the Healthwatch Isle of Wight website and Facebook page. To ensure each session remains COVID-secure, people are asked to book in advance by contacting the venues directly or emailing [email protected].
Anyone who would prefer to provide anonymous feedback, or would like to request a visit to another group or area of the Island, should contact Healthwatch Isle of Wight using the contact details above. Further contact details can be found on their website.
Councillor Lilley added:
“After 18 months of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s important to have a fresh look at the mental wellbeing of all our residents.
“The key is to get out to every part of the Island and to listen to people from all walks of life and ages to better understand how people are feeling and what mental wellbeing means to them and what support they have or, if not, what they need.
“There are many great support projects across the Island and this is also an opportunity to highlight these and get them the recognition they deserve.”
Simon Bryant, the Island’s director of public health, said:
“As we recover from the pandemic it is so important we understand people’s experiences and the impact this has had on their mental and emotional wellbeing.
“This will help us develop ways to better help people to improve their own mental wellbeing and to ensure people can access the right support at the right time.”
It would be a good start to have a working health service on the Island, many people have lost support workers and the services are scant and unreliable. I have bipolar disorder and can’t even get to see a doctor, I just have luckily escaped becoming ill due to a good support network with friends but many aren’t so lucky. All I read hear from this article is blah blah blah.
Why publish this so late ? The first session was held the previous day in Totland – too late to attend now of course.
It begs the question how serious they are in tackling this issue..
My mental health would be better if my medical needs were handled properly instead of being abandoned by the clinic on the maintain and the doctors surgery incapable of doing simple blood tests without loosing them.
My mental health improved over the first lockdown because less people about, less traffic, less noise. Got worse again on the 2nd lockdown because then you hardly knew there was a lockdown in place anyway because so many people were just ignoring it. What is now deemed normal life is very stressful for some of us who want a more peaceful existence, but it’s not to be found anywhere.
same – first few weeks were a much desired head holiday
Lockdowns are not helping the cause
lack of effectual treatment is not helping but there are many supposed support networks with fancy names yet none offer much more than finger painting as a treatment
great something that will give a few people a job yet ultimately change nothing… as usual when it comes to mental health – lots of people getting paid, few getting effective help.