The charity Southwark Mind has now been dissolved. Scroll down for further information.
What was Southwark Mind?
Southwark Mind was a mental health charity run and managed by local users/ survivors. It aimed to campaign for better mental health services. Major successes from 1988-2012 were:
- Winning a campaign for women only wards at the Maudsley Hospital
- Setting up the SUC (Service User Council) where service users could meet with service providers and hold them to account, using an innovative involvement model since copied widely
- Pioneering peer support groups including running a Women’s Forum since 2002. This successful group has led to the local NHS service seeing the importance of peer support and rolling out their own groups
- Setting up a publicity campaign to save the Emergency Clinic at the Maudsley Hospital. Although the clinic closed in the end, the campaign raised the profile of mental health to the wider community
- Running the Cuckoo Club, Women’s Forum, Hearing Voices Group, Parents Group – all user-run and user-led services
- Setting up Kindred Minds, a unique Black and minority ethnic project, which combines activities and social drop in with a strong campaigning arm which includes working on the campaign to save Amardeep day service for the south Asian community in Lambeth
- Producing 121 issues of the popular mental health magazine “Southwark Mind Newsletter”
- Producing two paperback services directories
- Producing an acclaimed paperback radical mental health manifesto
- Pop concerts, summer outings, seasonal dinners, conferences
- Keeping going for nearly 15 years despite the pressures of running a small charity with few funds.
Thank you to all the people who worked to make Southwark Mind a landmark charity, including all past staff and trustees.
So what happened to all the activities we ran?
Women’s Forum, SUC and Hearing Voices Group are now part of the newly formulated
Lambeth & Southwark Mind
link = http://lambethandsouthwarkmind.org.uk/
Kindred Minds is now part of Social Action for Health
link = http://safh.org.uk/our-work/kindred-minds