What is the project about?
Colab Exeter is hosting a one year project, starting September 2020, which will bring together different organisations to co-design and test new ways of providing a ‘community response’ to mental health support in Exeter.
The pilot draws on the ‘NHS Long Term Plan’ and ‘Community Mental Health Framework for Adult and Older Adults’ which recognise that the way that the way mental health services are delivered in communities needs to be transformed. They call for a radical redesign of community-based mental health provision which also makes the most of community resources.
What is the aim?
To co-design and test a co-located community mental health and wellbeing offer which makes the most of community resources in the current context and beyond.
The vision is that people will be able to
What will it look like?
The Colab Connected (COCO) project has three objectives
Establish a telephone and online mental health support service, which will take calls from the public. The staff member will be able to listen, respond proactively and connect the person with information, activities or support. They will work with existing mental health support services.
Mental health and wellbeing team members from across different secondary mental health and community services will be co-located and will work together to provide an integrated community support offer.
The aim is that both of the above services will be co-designed by the partners involved, tested and reviewed with quarterly reflection cycles, so that the service can be rapidly adapted and improved as it evolves to best meet needs.
The Colab core team will host both of the above projects, integrate partners and activities into the community, facilitate learning and development and manage the action learning process that is at the heart of the project. They will be responsible for gathering data, facilitating the co-design, implementation and evaluation process and coordinating the collaborative funding of the initiative longer term.
Who is involved?
The partners already engaged in the project are listed below, but we welcome new organisations and community groups who would like to be involved.
We are excited to be bringing together representatives from across the current mental health system to co-design a new offer that draws on existing community resources and aims to improve experiences. We would welcome other organisations or individuals with lived experience who would like to become part of the project.
If you are interested in being involved or would like to know more please contact us
We are holding an introductory zoom call on Wednesday 23rd September from 1.30 - 2.30pm.
Initial questions that we will be asking include:
We will also be holding online workshops to start the co-design process on Wednesday 7th October at 1.30pm - 4pm, and Tuesday 20th October at 10am - 1pm.
Please email us to let us know if you want to be involved and we will send you the zoom link for any/all of these events.
Back to projects