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At Trust Wide Involvement Group meeting yesterday service users were urged to join as Members.

I am also a member of staff and I would like to see more people who are service users as well as being staff coming forward and speaking about what matters in mental health.

Does anyone agree with me?

Penelope

As I understand it there are now abt. 10,000 members. Is the way the membership is being organised the most effective to make best use of this? It would be interesting to get thoughts of members as to how they might like to see the membership organisation develop.

I'd also like to have info on the current membership profile - i.e. breakdown by numbers who are patients/users, carers, staff, and public.

Personally I would like to see membership organised around the 8 CAG's which provide the managerial units for clinical activities and academic groups. Service users, carers and staff could then be more closely involved in the CAG relevant to them, and a member council could be elected for each CAG by the relevant membership. This would seem a more effective and focused way of promoting involvement per strategy than only having the Member's Council which covers everything. If each CAG Council had say 8 members, then these could come together in period conferences with main Council and would enable a more direct grassroots approach than at present.

I'd also think that this would be of assistance to academic groups and clinicians, particularly as there is now duty to involve stakeholders and service users, and this would provide some structure to facilitate this on ongoing basis (rather like standing ethics committee instead of convening ad hoc).

How can we develop our mental well-being and health? You may have insights and tips you would like to share with others. This could be finding better ways to relax,or looking at the benefits of exercise. It might be about hobbies, courses, work, or anything else you'd care to share - the topic is yours. What do you think?

I would like to know how i can add an event we, the HSPR Department at the IoP, will be holding later this year where SLaM Staff and Members will be invited.

Thank you.

In the Department of Health's 2009 Attitudes to Mental Illness report (www.dh.gov.uk), one in ten people said they wouldn’t want to live next door to someone with a mental health problem, up from 8 per cent since 1994. Do you think attitudes to mental health have worsened in recent years?