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Mental health: 'This says there is nothing to be ashamed of'
IT is estimated that one in four people will suffer mental health problems at some point in their life. Working with that statistic, it means that mental health issues will affect many thousands of people across Peterborough during their lifetime.
IT is estimated that one in four people will suffer mental health problems at some point in their life. Working with that statistic, it means that mental health issues will affect many thousands of people across Peterborough during their lifetime.Thankfully, there are new developments in the city to help care for and support those people, as Hannah Gray reports.
FROM its spacious, open layout to its philosophy of actively encouraging members of the public to visit, the new Cavell Centre is set to dismantle stigmas and offer a new type of care for people with mental health problems.
The centre, which is on the same site as the Edith Cavell Hospital, in Bretton, Peterborough, was opened in stages, finishing in May this year.
It has 102 beds, all of which are in single, en-suite rooms, and also a small day patient provision.
Everything about the design of the centre and the ethos behind it has been put in place to change the face of mental health care in the city.
From the initial design stages, it was clear a new kind of building was called for, as Jacqueline Hanratty, the Cavell Centre's senior manager, explained.
"Keeping it light and airy was very important, as was having lots of smaller spaces that people could sit in and talk," she said.
"On the wards, we've got that many spaces that our patients may not even see each other throughout the day because there's so much choice, so many areas. But there's also communal areas where people can come together for support if they need to.
"Privacy, dignity and respect were the core principles that were given to the architects."
But as well as being a pleasant place for patients to stay and a building which will aid their recovery, those behind the centre hope that it will become a building used by the wider community.
The restaurant is open from 8am to 6.30pm and services users who are well enough can eat their meals in there, as can their family and friends, staff members and even the public.
Jacqueline said: "We want it to be a place where people can come in. They can find out information if they want about mental health problems, but also they can just come and use the space to sit and relax, use our restaurant and use the experience of our staff to help them understand problems they may have or someone else they know might have."
As well as being what is termed an "open psychiatric unit", there is also an eight-bed psychiatric intensive care unit at the centre, but even this is a long way from what people might imagine.
Jacqueline said: "The intensive care unit is a restricted environment but it's still not locked up or locked away, it's an enhanced staff ratio to patients."
When it was fully up and running, 70 patients transferred from older facilities to the new Cavell Centre, and their response so far has been positive.
"They're just amazed," Jacqueline said. "They're amazed with the quality. They're amazed with the variety of spaces there are. We have courtyards, we have gardens, when have numerous seating areas people can relax in.
"We've never had anything like this before."
The staff have also been benefiting from the new facilities.
"It's the first time we've ever had dedicated staff changing areas and a rest room, so the staff are feeling incredibly valued," Jacqueline said.
As well as serving a purpose in terms of providing care for patients, it is hoped that the Cavell Centre will begin to change attitudes.
Jacqueline said: "Mental health has always been pushed to the background. Now we're at the forefront. For us, having something like this says there's nothing to be ashamed of in having mental health problems."
However, Jacqueline is aware that after hundreds of years of stigma attached to mental health, changing public attitudes is not going to be accomplished overnight.
"We don't think it's going to be easy but we're 100 per cent committed to breaking down the stigma so that what we do on a day-by-day basis continually challenges that stigma," she said.
CASE STUDY - MIND
The offices of the Greater Dogsthorpe Partnership (GDP) have for the past few years been the hub of a general drive to improve that area of the city. Now, under a pilot scheme, the GDP has branched out its work to look at mental health issues.
In April this year, Jessica Schofield was appointed the community project worker for mental health, and is based at the GDP offices in Central Avenue.
Jessica is not a counsellor, psychologist or therapist, but someone who can identify problems and provide information about where people can get help."The idea is that there was a need for somebody to help, not necessarily to just do the one-to-one work, but to be able to signpost people on and to be a knowledge and information person," Jessica said.
Before people become alarmed about life in the Greater Dogsthorpe area, it is worth noting that Jessica's role was not created because there is a statistically higher incidence of mental health issues there, but because staff at GDP realised that often such issues could be in some way linked to other social problems.
"I think what they were experiencing is that they were having people coming in with residency issues which were relating back to people you could say had some mental health problems," Jessica said.
"They were living within the community and having different problems and lots of people were dealing with different things like anti-social behaviour but no one was there to deal with the mental health side of things."
Jessica's role does not only involve seeing residents individually but also going out to the community to visit groups and agencies to advise them on what they can do to help people.
"I don't necessarily work one-to-one but act as somebody to help them access services that might be appropriate for them and also to help agencies who maybe are encountering people who have poor mental health but don't know what to do."
Jessica's role is funded for nine months and during that time, as well as offering practical support, she hopes her job will go some way to remove the stigmas surrounding mental health.
"Everyone sees mental health problems as being at one end of the spectrum, where you're looking at bipolar or schizophrenia but it may be things that people are stressed out about like a neighbour they're having problems with," she said.
"We don't often see mental health portrayed in a positive way and people find it hard to say 'I've got a mental health problem', or 'my mental health is not so good' yet they'd go to the doctor for a broken leg."
Jessica said that still in our society people can be afraid of those with mental health problems, because of headlines about incidents involving the mentally ill. But she believes we do not need to be afraid."You will often find that people with mental health problems are more scared of the outside world than anyone needs to be scared of them," she said.
"Mental health doesn't choose by where you stand in society, or what job you happen to have, it just hits people, it affects them.
"I'm trying to come into the community and reduce that stigma and say 'it's like any other illness'. It's no different from getting a cold or from breaking your leg and yet somewhere along the line we've created a difference."
As well as being able to signpost people when they need help, Jessica is hoping that her role will also encourage people to take better preventative measures to look after their mental wellbeing.
"People don't necessarily look after their mental health," she said. "We live in a time when we've got pressure from all over. People don't actually say 'I must take time for myself and look after my mental health'."
Jessica runs a drop-in session every other Thursday from 2pm to 3.30pm at the Greater Dogsthorpe Partnership offices on Central Avenue. To find out when she is next in, call GDP on 01733 317494
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