This month’s breakfast meeting was a special one as the Collaborative bid farewell to Maresa Ness – Chief Executive at Mosaic Clubhouse – who retired at Mosaic’s AGM on 15 November. Maresa has been a key figure in the Collaborative for several years and her drive, commitment and enthusiasm have been an incredible asset to Lambeth and central to several important developments in the borough, such as the Evening Sanctuary. She will be missed by many both in a professional and personal context and the Collaborative wished her well in her retirement. Maresa was joined at the breakfast meeting this month by Chris Thomas, the new Chief Executive at Mosaic Clubhouse, so the Collaborative also had the opportunity to welcome him to his new role in Lambeth.

Living Well Network Alliance Update (LWNA)
Sue Field and Neil Robertson gave an update on progress in relation to the Living Well Network Alliance.
The October LWNA newsletter (click here) was circulated for background, which gives an overview of the plans for service transformation. Key updates were as follows:
• Proposed approach is to have 3 Living Well Centres in the locality areas: North, South East and South West.
• Each Living Well Centre will work as 1 team, supporting people with short term needs (up to 12 weeks) as well as longer term needs.
• The centres will have a range of different staff to provide support, including psychiatrists, occupational therapists, nurses, social workers, voluntary sector support workers and peer supporters.
• Neil emphasised that we are moving away from diagnostic specific teams in the centres as it is important to acknowledge that people don’t come with a single issue. However, this won’t prevent people from accessing specialist treatment options.
• There will also be some ‘wraparound’ services which work across the whole borough, including a mobile response unit, which has the ability to respond within 4 hours, a medication service to support people with medication that GPs are unable to prescribe and a new 24/7 peer support line.
• Plans for a step down/step forward house (name still to be decided!) was also discussed, which should support people to move out of an acute setting, who previously would have been delayed due to a range of issues such as waiting for a package of care, problems with tenancies etc.
• The potential benefits of the step down/step forward house were discussed, such as supporting people to practice skills that they will need when living more independently e.g. cooking, shopping, cleaning etc.
• The house will support people for up to 8 weeks and have 6 beds – 3 for shorter term stays and 3 for longer term stays.
• The LWNA is also looking into expanding the safe space offer in Lambeth to operate on a 7 day basis.
• Sue and Neil also discussed a potential borough wide triage service, which will carry out a single assessment and act as passport to service offers. This should allow people not to have to repeat information and their stories multiple times.
There were questions around a number of elements, including:
• How do we ensure that the wards retain responsibility for skilling up people, as the proposed step down house will do?
• How can we make use of the range of peers already in the system? There is a significant amount of expertise and experience here.
• How can we ensure that people are followed up effectively and reliably in the community after discharge?
• How can we allow people to come back to supporters that they already know if they need extra support?
Neil and Sue closed with an offer to come to talk to any people, team or organisation in Lambeth who would like to know more about the proposed service changes.

Young People’s Event 18th October
Neil updated on an event on 18 October at Mosaic Clubhouse with young people, focusing on reflecting on the current service proposals of the LWNA. A write up of the event was circulated, (click here) which was discussed.
Simple to understand handouts were produced summarising the potential changes – which were well received – and there was a powerful performance from a spoken word poet. Participants went through what people felt was good about the proposed new model and what was missing. This brought up a number of key points, including reflections on how staff engage with people and the issue of their practice and approach as well as the importance of physical space in making people feel welcome, amongst many other points.
The next event will be in the same format but focus on inpatient care and be held in January.

Time to Change
Stef Abrar and Harriet Ballantine joined the Collaborative to discuss the Time to Change bid. There is a proposal that the coordinator role – which will be responsible for administering the £10,000 grant – will be carried out by the Local Authority and Healthwatch/Black Thrive. Stef asked that the Collaborative act as a reference group or sounding board every quarter and the group was supportive of this idea. There was also a call for more organisations to be part of the steering group and Stef agreed to follow up with a number outside of the meeting. Stef will hear back about the funding decision in December and update the Collaborative as to the outcome.

Local Care Networks
Sandra Jones updated on progress in relation to the Local Care Networks and three engagement/ training opportunities:
• The LCNs are implementing a co-production framework which includes establishing Communities of Practice, to support people to develop coproduction skills and apply them in the system.  They are looking for a mixture of people in these, including statutory sector staff, voluntary sector staff and local people. If people would like to express an interest in these, then see the instructions on this form (click here).
• Lambeth Together has received funding to run eight courses, including appreciative enquiry, asset-based community development, restoration practice and different conversations. In order to express interest in any of these, please email Sandra Jones on sandra@sandrajones.org.uk.
• There is a piece of work around reimagining the Akerman Health Centre and how we can realise a true neighbourhood-led way of working through co-production. For more background on this, see the briefing paper here (click here). If you want to be involved, please email Sandra Jones on sandra@sandrajones.org.uk.

Other Updates
• Phillipe Cotgreave updated on Faiths Together in Lambeth. They have recently run mental health first aid courses and the feedback has been very encouraging. There are a range of options, including a 2 day, 1 day and half day course.
• Maresa updated on the Evening Sanctuary figures from April to October 2018. 98 people were referred and 86 people attended on 1258 occasions. There is an issue currently around the number of people attending with alcohol and drug issues and Maresa has engaged with Mick Collins from Lambeth addictions to consider how best to support these people.
Josh Okhiria updated on Solidarity in a Crisis. In Quarter 2, there have been 143 calls from Lambeth residents, 25 of those not previously known. There were 21 face to face meetings and from King’s College A&E, there were 17 referrals, with 9 of them from Lambeth residents. Peer supporters have also been going to Rosa Park ward to provide peer support. Karen Hooper updated that there is now a monthly meeting around peer support – including the Carers Hub Lambeth, Certitude, IPSA, Black Thrive and SLaM links.
David Meyrick informed the group that there is a carers’ event on 19 November from 5.30 – 8pm at Brixton 336. The Collaborative welcomed Polly Howes, who is working on carers’ strategy with the Hub.

Next Meeting
Thursday 13 December – 8 – 10am