ABOUT US

The Eastern Devon Mental Health Partnership Group is a space for professionals involved in providing mental health support in Mid Devon, Exeter, and East Devon to build trust with each other, learn and reflect about mental health provision, and explore opportunities to do things better for those that need it most. It has a diverse membership that ranges from those working for small local charities and other community-based organisations to NHS staff to local council representatives. This group evolved out of the Eastern Devon Locality Implementation Team that was established by Devon Partnership Trust in 2019 to support the implementation of the Community Mental Health Framework.

VISION

Our vision is to create a space that builds trust and enables learning to improve communities’ capacity to support wellbeing, reduce overall costs to statutory providers, increase sustainability for VCSE providers, and offer something meaningful to those with currently no access to appropriate mental health provisions.

PARTNERSHIP CHAIRS

Matt Merriam

Community Mental Health Development Lead - Devon Mental Health Alliance & CoLab

Matt Merriam

Matt is a leader and strategic thinker who is passionate about enabling people to thrive under any circumstance and equipping organisations to create better environments for those that struggle the most. He has 20+ years of experience in supporting communities in collaboratively innovating solutions to the problems they face, particularly in the area of mental health. His current role involves coordinating and curating the efforts and aspirations of Eastern Devon mental health stakeholders and initiatives to enhance the community-based support provided to those with severe mental health struggles yet unable to access statutory services.

Andy Stapley

Co-chair of Eastern Primary Care Collaborative Board and Primary Care Network Management Support

Andy Stapley

Andy has considerable management experience across both public and private sectors, though his most recent positions have been within the NHS. He has a special interest in provision for vulnerable groups, including mental health and domestic abuse, having spent many years leading training and awareness for the NHS in Devon, including a considerable amount of multi-agency working. Andy is also currently setting up a CIC with his partner to look at ways of attracting funding for some of the gaps that we are unable to fill through the statutory funding within primary care.

OUR PRIORITIES  

First and foremost, our priority is to build trust between any professionals (and their organisations) providing mental health support across Eastern Devon. That being said, with our roots firmly planted in the community mental health framework, we do have a particular focus on trying to improve provision for those that might be considered too unwell to be supported by primary care services, but can’t meet the criteria for support from community mental health teams. We believe that the number of people who fall into that gap is significant, and it will need a truly multi-agency, trauma informed, compassion focussed, and innovative series of solutions to change.

PARTNERSHIP WORK

So far, we have used this space to actively learn from a number of different providers working with a range of different people.

  • Children and Young People. We took time to learn from Young Devon, Parental Minds, and Children and Family Health Devon about the needs of young people and how we might meet them as a system. Members of this group went on to establish the Family Minds Partnership to leverage their collective resources and knowledge to improve the support given to children, young people, and their families.
  • Multi-Agency Health and Wellbeing Hubs. We took time to learn about family hubs in Plymouth, the National Centre for Family Hubs, and CoLab in Exeter to explore how we might establish more multi-agency working and co-located spaces across Eastern Devon. Action for Children, who are leading on family hub development in Devon, have since become a kay member of this group.
  • Crisis Support – We took time to learn from The Moorings, First Response Service, the Discharge Buddy Service in Cambridge, and St. James’ Place in Liverpool. This led to great conversations about developing more safe spaces across Eastern Devon for those experiencing a mental health crisis.
  • Neurodivergence – We took time to learn from Esteem Team CIC about the specific needs of those who are neurodivergent and the changes we can all make to ensure our services are accessible to anyone with those specific needs.
  • Networking – We have created time for a wide range of services to talk about what they are offering, what they are learning, and the needs that they are seeing continuously go unmet.

GUIDANCE & POLICY

Eastern Devon Mental Health Partnership Group Common Purpose:

  • What do we want to do?

We want to create a partnership where professionals involved in mental health support in Eastern Devon can build trust with each other, learn and reflect about mental health provision, and explore opportunities to do things better for those that need it most.

  • Why do we want to do this work?

Because there are a lot of people struggling with their mental wellbeing, and in our opinion the only successful route to having all those needs met is innovative collaboration between primary care, secondary care, the VCSE, and communities. Trust is fuel for the vital collaborative work needed – trust that needs to be intentionally nurtured and grown.

  • What are the benefits going to include?

The trust created in this space and the learning that is gleaned from each other will create the necessary infrastructure to build new ways of providing better mental health support to those that need it most. These new ways of support will improve communities’ capacity to support wellbeing, reduce overall costs to statutory providers, increase sustainability for VCSE providers, and offer something meaningful to those with currently no access to appropriate mental health provisions.

Community Mental Health Framework – https://onedevon.org.uk/our-work/services-and-support/mental-health/community-mental-health-framework/

MEETINGS

Our meetings take place on the third Thursday of every month, on Microsoft Teams, from 9am-10am. If you would like to join us, please contact our co-chair Matt Merriam via email: [email protected]