A self-enrolment facility which allows Surrey residents to undertake courses to manage their mental health needs is the “best kept secret” of the NHS, a former service user has said. <\/p>\n
For over 10 years the Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust has run a Recovery College centred around supporting people experiencing mental health issues.<\/p>\n
Kate Monfort, who first joined as a student in 2016 before becoming a volunteer and then staff, believes these colleges are an asset that “lots of people don’t know about”.<\/p>\n
“I found it incredibly helpful for my own mental health and recovery journey, and it just works,” she said.<\/p>\n
“Psychoeducation is a very powerful mechanism to support recovery, it gives a sense of control, builds up confidence and self-esteem, so I’m really passionate about it.”<\/p>\n
This form of education involves teaching individuals about mental health conditions and emotional wellbeing. <\/p>\n
“I found that doing these courses, doing this training, finding my tribe…it was just so helpful,” said Ms Monfort.<\/p>\n
Alongside activities such as arts and crafts, the Recovery College courses focus on conditions such as OCD, anxiety and depression. <\/p>\n
People can take part virtually or in “safe and supportive learning spaces”.<\/p>\n
Linda Parfitt, another former service user who has since become a volunteer, said the first course she did centred around discovering self-compassion. <\/p>\n
“It was a revelation,” she said.<\/p>\n
“It’s helped me feel that I’m not alone in the world, I’ve always got myself to turn back to.”<\/p>\n
Service manager Nina Clayton-Broom said the college initially started out as a pilot for people with a personality disorder, but it was so successful that it had been expanded.<\/p>\n
She said that being able to self-enrol, coupled with not needing to have any form of diagnosis, made it a truly accessible service.<\/p>\n
Ms Clayton-Broom added: “You don’t need to go via your GP, you don’t need to prove how difficult things are for you – and sometimes mental health services can feel a bit like that.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A self-enrolment facility which allows Surrey residents to undertake courses to manage their mental health needs is the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":93048,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[49,48,84,393,394],"class_list":{"0":"post-93047","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-mental-health","12":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}