Community Learning Mental Health Pilot Project
Background paper
April 2015
National Community Learning Mental Health Pilot Programme
A national government body is investing £5m funding in 2015-16 and subject
to approval £15m in 2016-17 for a pilot community learning programme for
adults 19 years to support their recovery from mild to moderate mental health
problems, such as depression, anxiety and sleep disorders. Anxiety and
depression are the most common disorders, with more than eight million
people affected in England alone.
The funding, available across the two years aims to help up to 80,000
learners by delivering community learning mental health courses in local
settings across England. The pilot is the development, delivery, evaluation
and sharing of educational approaches to support recovery from mental
health problems, in order to identify the potential for sustainability and wider
dissemination.
Harrow’s Community Learning Mental Health Pilot
Harrow’s pilot project has been designed in response to the national
programme service specification. Harrow Council Adult Community Learning
Dept is the lead body for this project and will contract and monitor Mind in
Harrow’s delivery and report to the national government funding body. The
pilot will run between 1 July 2015 and 31 March 2016 and may be continued
for a second year depending on the funding.
The pilot incorporates two types of courses:
a) Those which tackle a mental health condition indirectly for example via
non-formal activity based courses such as art, music, craft, dance
b) Those which tackle a mental health condition directly, for example via a
‘Manage your Stress’ course
Both types of courses must complement interventions delivered by
organisations such as Harrow Talking Therapies service, NHS-funded
Recovery College courses or other activities commissioned by local mental
health services.
From a review of evidence sources, it was concluded that community mental
health courses targeted and tailored for hard to reach BMER communities and
young adults aged 19+ to 30 are most needed in Harrow. As such the Harrow
pilot will test new approaches targeting hard to reach groups within this
provision to add to the national evidence base.
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Our project will deliver 24 new short community mental health courses over
two terms, offering a total of 288 additional new learner course places across
both course types:
a) The non-formal activity courses will be targeted and tailored for BMER
communities & young adults 19+ to 30 and will include a mix of course
content: creative, physical activity or practical (eg ICT). Self-employed
tutors to deliver each course will be carefully selected for their
qualifications, experience of learners with mental health problems,
cultural awareness.
b) The mental health courses tackling mental health conditions directly
will also target the same hard to reach groups. The course content will
have an educational focus with topics such as, emotional wellbeing,
mindfulness, confidence building and exam stress.
Additional pilot requirements
The programme has two other required activities, which the Harrow pilot will
be trialing and evaluating via a mental health peer-led approach:
 Workforce development courses so that tutors delivering the activity
courses and referral partners from BMER and education settings will
have an increased understanding of mental health and overcoming
barriers in access to services.
 ‘Top-up’ support sessions post courses for those participants who ask
for additional assistance to sustain their progression.
Steering Group
The development of the course programme will be co-produced with a
Steering Group of partner organisations and learner representatives and
delivered in partnership with Mind in Harrow BMER & young adult specific
projects and local partners such as Harrow College & University of
Westminster.
Staffing for the pilot
2 x 0.8 WTE (4 day per week) Coordinators will develop and oversee the two
new course programmes, each managing one programme: a) BMER & Young
Adults Courses Coordinator and b) Wellbeing Courses Coordinator. Both
programmes will coordinate on all aspects of project development and
delivery and will provide learner outcome evaluation results to a national pilot
evaluation team.
The workforce development and ‘top-up’ support sessions will be offered
through our mental health service user-led project ‘Head for Work’ which
accredits people with lived experience to become mental health awareness
trainers.
Mind in Harrow Stepping Stones Project
Mind in Harrow has a pre-existing adult community learning project open to
anyone experiencing mental health problems in Harrow called Stepping
Stones Project and funded by Harrow Council Adult Community Learning
Dept. Our pilot project has been developed from what we have learned from
running the Stepping Stones Project over 15 years and expands on it.
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