NHS Mental Health Workshops (Free!)

Just reposting some email messages that have happened into my inbox for the general good and interest locally

From an email ...

Hi there, 

My name is David, and I am a psychological therapist working for the IAPT service within Whittington Health. IAPT stands for Improving Access to Psychological Therapies – we work with adults (16+) in the community who are be experiencing depression, anxiety, panic, stress, and other common mental health difficulties (http://www.lets-talk-iapt.nhs.uk/).  

The reason I’m emailing is because we are keen to expand our reach and improve the local community’s awareness of mental health and of our service. As such, we facilitate free workshops about mental health.  

I thought it may be worth reaching out to you in case you or your team felt it could be useful to organise a workshop for some of your patients, or even members of staff (I’ve run workshops with the Turkish diabetes team and the Rheumatology team).

The specific workshops last between 30 minutes to 2 hours (depending on what works for you) and are as follows: 

• General emotional wellbeing (breaking down the cycles of depression and anxiety, and briefly discussing techniques to break those cycles) 
• Stress and relaxation (discussing the function of stress and explaining symptoms of panic, and trying out basic mindfulness / relaxation exercises).  

We can also adapt our workshops to suit the audience – to date we have delivered tailored workshops to patients in cardiac rehab and pulmonary rehab, and within the diabetes WINDFAL programme (impact of having a long term condition, breathlessness vs COPD, panic vs heart failure).  

We have also worked with teams of firefighters (emphasis on trauma), a group of adult carers (emotional and practical impact of caring for another person), perinatal parents or parents of older children (emotional wellbeing when pregnant or caring for a young child), college students (procrastination and exam stress), pensioners (emotional impact of getting older), staff at local housing services (how to have difficult conversations about mental health with clients), etc. 

Most of the organisations and charities that we work with ask us to come back again several times, and we always get good feedback. Some of these include: London Fire Brigade, Carers First, Risley Avenue Primary School, Bright Beginnings, Haringey Adult Learning Service, CONEL (College of North East London).  

We also don’t necessarily require a projector / PowerPoint, as we are quite adept at ad-libbing and speaking without a script. We would however need you to provide the premises for the workshop.  

The workshop facilitator is usually me or one of my colleagues – we are all qualified mental health professionals and psychological therapists in our own right, and we work with patients day-to-day. 

Please do get in touch if you think your team would be interested – and please do send this on if I’ve emailed the wrong person.  

Many thanks and looking forward to hearing from you! 

Kind regards,

David Ilott

Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner - Community Engagement & Outreach

Haringey IAPT

LET'S TALK IAPT
Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) in Enfield and Haringey
The Whittington Hospital NHS Trust

t: 020 3074 2280
e: David.ilott1@nhs.net
w: www.lets-talk-iapt.nhs.uk

Address: Crouch End Health Centre, 45 Middle Ln, London N8 8PH

Working times: Mon, Tues, Friday 8-6pm and Thursday 10-8pm

Mobile number: 07951149847

Manager: Mariavi Martinez

Please note: Let’s Talk IAPT is not an emergency service. If you are hearing voices, or at risk of harming yourself or others, please call your GP or the Crisis Resolution and Home Treatment Team on 020 8702 6700. You can also call 999 or visit your local Accident & Emergency (A&E).​