Please circulate this message from Black Thrive 
Hello
Following on from the work we have been doing over the past 3 months, Keisha and I have delivered two community engagement sessions as part of developing a culturally appropriate peer support and advocacy service (CAPSA). We have also been working alongside a group of service users, to enable us to co-design what the peer support and advocacy service should offer and the preferred methods of delivery. We want to ensure that the service meets the needs of Black communities in Lambeth and provides a template for the way in which other mental health services within SLaM are designed. The initial community engagement sessions identified the following themes that we want to explore and develop further:
- Understanding the different ‘shades’ of blackness
- Having a foundation for culturally appropriate work
- Partnership – bridging the gap between community and systems/services
- Representation
- Experiences of and feelings about services
- Understanding the individual’s perspective
- Desire for alternative mental health options
- Agency and empowerment to choose
- The need to connect to manage life’s stressors
We want to reach out to service users, carers, family members, NHS and voluntary staff, existing peer support workers and wider community group leaders and ideally, we would like to recruit people who would be willing to talk to us, and the service user researchers, in an interview.
This would help us understand the range of experiences of black service users accessing mental health services. We recognise that some people want to express themselves differently through art, poetry, music, drama and dance and we would welcome these alternative ways of storytelling.
Given the current Tier 4 restrictions, all contact will need to be by phone or using the zoom online platform. Participants will be given a £15 voucher for participating by any of the ways mentioned above, as we really appreciate individuals taking the time to share their experiences with us for this project.
Please can you circulate this information to all who might be interested in taking part in the research, we can be contacted via email at [email protected] or [email protected] and on 07737 494 179 if you prefer to call.
