To mark World Refugee Day, June 20, Solent Mind joined National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health’s (NCCMH) Advancing Mental Health Equalities learning set.

Joshua Bailey, Solent Mind’s Research, Insight and Involvement Officer, said: “It was brilliant to share some of the work we’ve been doing at the NCCMH’s recent Advancing Mental Health Equalities learning set on World Refugee Day. Lots of inspiration and insights from other teams on the collaborative also supporting refugee and asylum-seeking populations.”

As part of our work to advance mental health equalities, the Impact and Inclusion team are focusing on supporting refugees and people seeking asylum in Southampton.

Suz Johnson, Solent Mind’s Diversity and Inclusion Outreach Worker in Southampton, has been connecting and building relationships with community members and professionals in local support organisations, to gain an understanding of people’s needs and barriers they face in accessing services.

Solent Mind will be running pilots to overcome these barriers; these include a trauma informed wellbeing group for Arabic speaking individuals at Mayfield Nurseries and providing workplace wellbeing training to CLEAR, one of the local community partners closely involved in the project.

Solent Mind will be continuing to connect with people from this community, working together to design further solutions.

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