Project of the Year 2021

Recovery Road is a day program to promote holistic recovery for co-existing mental ill health and substance misuse in adults.

The project works on the basis that recovery from mental ill health and addiction is not a one-hour-a-month appointment; it requires a lifetime of change. This program would be a 9.30am-4pm offer, Monday to Friday, and offer an achievable and realistic journey of recovery. 

The provision would include:

• Assessment
• Recovery planning
• Risk management
• Additional activities and visits to fellowship meetings at a weekend
• Support for anyone currently in hospital and respite within NAViGO
• Peer support
• Relapse prevention
• Art therapy
• Life skills
• CBT
• Motivational interventions
• Managing emotions
• Mindfulness
• Promoting physical activity and educational interventions

It will be delivered in conjunction with The Comeback and Creative Start recovery community

A simple idea born from lived experience, CLIFF fills a gap around dedicated emotional resilience services for men who have lost a child. 

The philosophy behind this is disproportionate support based on gender – i.e. although both mum and dad are included in post-natal support, the methods are largely female-centric and not always inclusive of male needs. Dad feels like he must have a ‘stiff upper lip’ and there is a perception of it being socially unacceptable for dads to talk about this in favour of how it is affecting their partner, which can lead to breakdown further down the line.

The project would offer either a group or one-to-one support network for fathers, hosted by those with lived experience. Initially this would be a Zoom group and led by in-house staff, but would eventually move into a peer mentor capacity.

A neuropsychiatry service would bridge the gap between neurology and psychiatry in North East Lincolnshire.

The service would offer neuropsychiatric and specialist memory disorders service for adults aged 18+ and their families, offering assessment and treatment of the psychiatric and behavioural manifestations of neurological disorders and brain injuries.

This service is not available locally at present, although neuropsychology is commissioned through NLaG and delivered sporadically.  NAViGO has been providing neuropsychiatry without commissioning and now wishes to formalise this into a pilot programme to prove efficacy. 

The service would be delivered from the community and be based within Primary Care Centres, offering specialist interventions and social prescribing where appropriate, and educating families. Specialist training to deliver has already been undertaken by the staff team.

NAViGrants uses project of the year funding to create grant funding opportunities, via The Gardiner Hill Foundation, for local VCSE (Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise) providers.

It is well recognised that the VCSE sector could and should play a key role in addressing the increasing demand on mental health services and worsening health inequalities as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Within NEL we have a plethora of local ‘grassroots’ VCSE organisations and this proposal is an opportunity for NAViGO to build relationships with the local providers through the provision of grant funding.

Local VCSE organisations already have a really good understanding of our local population needs and gaps in service. They will be actively encouraged to work with NAViGO to present their ideas and proposals to access our grant funding. Through development of relationships with the local VCSE organisations, we will also be able to approach them with any challenges or gaps we are aware of to get their suggestions for how the VCSE sector could use innovation to offer a solution.

A robust but bureaucracy-light process will be established for reviewing proposals from local VCSE providers. Each proposal will be reviewed by the Project of the Year lead, Gardiner Hill trustees, the service area rep most likely to be involved in the development, Experts by Experience and community members with an interest and expertise in the proposed area of development.

The process will include considering if the proposal is environmentally sustainable.

Reach-in is a staff wellbeing offer and the provision of an independent professional friend - a regular familiar face to build rapport and trust with - who comes into services and makes themselves available for staff, to listen, counsel and signpost.

It's proposed as a more effective way to support staff than telephone services, suggesting staff are often reluctant to ‘reach out’ and benefit from provision.

Reach-in provides anonymous and confidential mental health support, whether this will be counselling or an alternative talking therapy. This support would be available to colleagues experiencing troubles in either personal or work life and a plan can be generated on how best to support the colleague whilst working.

Open Minds' Long Term Conditions team (LTC) want to support people with long term physical health programmes to better manage their mental health by becoming more active through one-to-one coaching and healthy lifestyle.

This proposal acknowledges the success of Care Plus Group's pulmonary rehabilitation course to support individuals with respiratory conditions (with Open Minds contributing with talks on managing mental health). 

The innovation is in recognition of those with long term conditions being two to three times more likely to have poor mental health in tandem. The project also aligns with transformation around PCNs who will be focusing on specialisms such as cardiac problems and diabetes.

The initial pilot will focus on type 2 diabetes, offering a free service to support people to make lifestyle changes by “holding their hand” through the initial transitional stage, encouraging people to be in a stronger position to make lasting positive changes. It will involve developing a structured programme containing meal plans, recipes, exercise routines, and a closed social media peer group with regular support from the LTC team, physios and diabetic specialists. 

It will also involve local organisations including leisure centres for support with a variety of exercise regimes and encourage peer support. Due to COVID, the initial pilot will run virtually over Zoom and across YouTube.

The programme will last one day per week for 12 weeks, with up to 30 participants, and will be supported initially from within the current staffing in the LTC team.