V O L U M E 2 | I S S U E 10 | O C T O B E R 2 0 1 9 BRIGHTON EIP NEWSLETTER ‘Paint It Purple’ with HEADS ON for World Mental Health Day on 10 October. World Mental Health Day is on Wednesday 10 October and this year HEADS ON, Sussex Partnership’s charity, is asking as many people as possible to get involved and ‘Paint It Purple!’ in order to show their support for World Mental Health Day, and to help break down the stigma that still surrounds mental health. Whilst the theme for this year is: “Young People and Mental Health in a Changing World”, you can choose to do whatever you want to do around a purple theme - the only limit is your imagination! HEADS ON can provide balloons, T-shirts, collection boxes, a poster template for you to promote what you are doing, sponsor forms and plenty of enthusiasm and ideas! Some possible ideas include: • Wearing something purple to work – how creative can you be? • A purple cake sale – get creative with that food dye! • A purple party - e.g. purple pyjama party, purple wigs/jumpers, purple cocktail party! This is a great chance to start a conversation about mental health in a positive way, to have some fun and to raise some money for HEADS ON. Find out more at: http://www.headsoncharity.org/events/paint-it-purple-with-heads-on-on-world-mental- health-day-10-october-2018/index.html SERVICE HOURS & CONTACTS GET INVOLVED The EIP office is open 9am-5pm, Monday to Friday We’re keen to involve service users and family (closed on Bank Holidays) and friend carers who have any ideas for future Office telephone number: content or would be interested in co-producing 0300 304 0064 this newsletter with us. You can email us at: If you need support when our office is closed you can [email protected] call the Sussex Mental Healthline on: if you are interested. 0300 5000 101 or Mental Health Rapid Response Service (MHRRS) on: 0300 304 0078 MONTHLY FAMILY AND FRIENDS NIGHT Our next night will be held on: Wednesday 6th November 2019 18:00-19:30 at The Aldrington Centre, 35 New Church Road, Hove, BN3 4AG An opportunity for family and friend carers to join us for peer support and wellbeing advice. The night is facilitated by EIP team members including our Carer Peer Specialist, Don Robertson. MEET THE TEAM… Hi. I’m Richard, the medical consultant with the Brighton & Hove Early Intervention service. I have been with the team in Brighton since it started in the mid 2000s and am overjoyed to see how much it has developed since then. We have been very lucky to have such an enthusiastic and dedicated team; and the amazing work they have done has helped hundreds of people with psychosis. I also work for the University and spend time helping to develop the NHS doctors of the future. I conduct research into how we can improve outcomes of mental illness and use treatments more effectively. This has importantly provided evidence of how collaborative treatment decision making with our service users can improve aspects of their health. I have been lucky enough to present these findings to audiences around the world and share our great practice. On a personal level, I love snow and guitars - but preferably not at the same time! Other members of the team might say I’m best known for my bad jokes - but as you can see from my picture, I can also be serious. EIP UK Voyage of Recovery, 2020 An adventure of a lifetime! Too often, people feel that their lives are restricted by mental health issues such as psychosis. However, in EIP we don’t buy into that view. We believe that life after an episode of psychosis can be so much more than symptom management. And here’s an exciting opportunity to find out for yourself what you are capable of! Next summer, eight crews (10 young people from an EIP service, together with 3-5 leaders) will sail a traditional sailing vessel along a different stretch of the UK coast: Voyages 1-4: East coast (‘London-Lindisfarne’), 15th June – 12th July Voyages 5-8: Hebrides and Irish sea islands, 17th August – 13th September The aim is to expose participants to a degree of adversity that, with support, they can overcome - learning about themselves and their strengths as they do so. Ideally, each crew will also be involved in the process of fund-raising for their own trip. One young person who did a previous voyage said it made her feel "a lot happier and energised" with a more "positive outlook on life". Another said seeing dolphins, the night sky and stars helped take his mind off things. Let us know if you are interested - even if you’re not sure, or would like to find out more first. Just tell your lead practitioner or email us at: [email protected] At our Beach BBQ in August we got some fantastic suggestions for future EIP groups to run. The ideas we got were: Rounders x 2 Badminton Table tennis x 2 Cycling Tai Chi Yoga x 2 Frisbee Mindfulness Anxiety / worry group Cooking Crazy golf x 2 x 2 Bowling Theatre Royal Beach picnic Ice skating Go – karting x 2 Baking x 2 Community garden Paintball i360 Visiting a Mushroom Kayaking farm picking Dog therapy Animal Owl / falconry Horse riding Dog walking groups More groups with Protest at Community service users and Jet skiing service Job Centre families Some groups will require some funding, so we will look into this and see what we can do. Some groups may need a contribution from those attending. If you have any more ideas, if there are any groups you have a particular interest in or would even like to be a part of facilitating or running the group with support then please let us know! .