What Next? Wandsworth – next in person meeting:  
Wednesday 14 June at Battersea Arts Centre. 4.30PM-5.30PM

The meeting is in the Members Library and is accessible via a lift 

We are looking forward to seeing you in person and hope that many regulars will attend as well as people we haven’t seen for a while. We hope the time of day will make it easier for some of you to attend.

These meetings are open to anyone with an interest in arts, culture and heritage so bring a colleague, friend or volunteer.

A reminder of What Next? protocols:
We want everyone to feel comfortable and confident in contributing to What Next?, and for us to build a space that enables trust and respect. We want everyone to feel able to ask questions and respond without fear that they will be misinterpreted or taken out of context. For that reason, our meetings are currently Chatham House – which means that we are asking people not to attribute anything in the meeting to a specific person, or describe them in a way that identifies them, unless you have the speaker’s permission to do so.
What Next? Wandsworth Meetings operate with this code of conduct

AGENDA
Chair:Elizabeth Lynch
1. Introductions

2. Apologies from Marsha de Cordova

3. Exciting news to discuss! Embargoed as I write this but hope most of you will know by next Wednesday!

4. News and horizon scanning from the room.

Mental Health Awareness Week 2023: National charity leaders visit the NHS’s stigma-breaking Springfield Village

Leaders from six national mental health charities visited the new Springfield Village at South West London and St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust yesterday to mark Mental Health Awareness Week 2023.

Chief Executives and senior leaders from Centre for Mental Health, Mental Health Foundation, Mind, Rethink Mental Illness, SANE, and Young Minds visited the brand-new Trinity building, at Springfield Hospital in Tooting and toured the wider Springfield Village.

Springfield Village is a new mixed-used community made up of new mental health facilities, over 800 new homes, shops and a new 32-acre public park. It is the largest urban development in London since the 2012 Olympics and has been designed in collaboration with staff, patients and local people over a number of years to break down barriers and open up the Springfield site for the benefit of the community.

Commenting on the visit, Trust Chief Executive Vanessa Ford said, “It was a pleasure to welcome our national charity leaders to Springfield as we celebrate Mental Health Awareness Week.

“We are extremely proud of everything we have achieved with our partners in creating Springfield Village. Bringing our services closer to the people we serve symbolises just how far we have come as a society in changing attitudes and breaking the enduring stigma around mental illness. That is in large part thanks to the dedicated campaigning and advocacy work of these fantastic organisations over a number of years. We still have a way to go and it is so important we work across organisational and societal boundaries to build on this momentum.  

“Springfield is just the start of our journey to transform local mental health services. We are excited to bring forward further investments this year, as we enhance and expand community mental health services and redevelop Barnes and Tolworth Hospitals.”

During the visit the group toured the Trinity building, which is part a £150m investment in local mental health services. They also saw some of the 20 specially commissioned artworks recently installed throughout the building and visited staff and patients at the Trust’s specialist Deaf service in Bluebell Ward. This was followed by a walk around the wider development and the new 32-acre park.

Mark Winstanley, Chief Executive of Rethink Mental Illness, said, “People who need mental health inpatient treatment have traditionally been isolated from the local community in outdated hospitals which aren’t designed to meet their needs. Springfield Village has been built with the input of people experiencing severe mental illness and has the potential to break the mould.

“It’s also really encouraging to see plans to integrate the hospital into the local community, which will help efforts to break down stigma that still has a tangible impact on people’s lives. We welcome the investment and careful consideration that has gone into ensuring people feel as comfortable and safe as possible during their treatment, and we await feedback from people who use this service as it could provide a blueprint for other plans in development across the country.”

Alexa Knight, Director of England at the Mental Health Foundation said, “It was wonderful to see this development which has so much potential for local people as well as for those directly supported by the hospital.

“The Trust is breaking down barriers and driving better mental health for everyone, which is great to see.”

The official opening for Springfield Village will take place on 5 July as part of a special community event as South West London and St George’s takes part in national celebrations to mark the NHS’s 75^th Birthday. 

Overall, the development is a key part of the Trust’s wider transformation programme which is facilitating more than £1bn of investment in regeneration across healthcare, education, and urban development – boosting the local economy and delivering lasting social, commercial and wellbeing benefits for people in South West London.

Find out more about the Trust’s plans to transform mental health services in South West London

About South West London and St George’s

• South West London and St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust serves 1.2m people across the boroughs of Kingston, Merton, Richmond, Sutton, and Wandsworth. It supports one of the most diverse populations in London and this is reflected in its workforce of more than 2,500 staff.
• Across its 120 clinical teams the Trust provides care to 20,000 people in South West London in at any given time. Services are delivered across:

• Acute and Urgent Care Services
• Community Services (for adults largely of working age)
• Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) and all age Eating Disorders Services
• And a Specialist Service Line which includes Forensics, Deaf Services, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD), Neuropsychiatry, Cognition and Mental Health in Ageing and Neurodevelopmental services.

• The Trust is committed to addressing entrenched health inequalities and becoming actively anti-racist. It aspires to work hand in hand with communities, patients and their carers through co-production and engagement. 
• The Trust has been at the forefront of mental health transformation for a number of years. This includes developing new mental health facilities and investing in community services to help more people to live well and stay well in their community, closer to their support networks. 

About Springfield Village

• Springfield Hospital in Wandsworth is changing and is becoming part of a new stigma-breaking community called Springfield Village.
• Springfield Village will eventually include:
  • Two state-of-the-art mental health buildings, Trinity and Shaftesbury – delivering best-in-class facilities
  • A 32-acre public park featuring a pavilion café, an amphitheatre, youth shelter, play areas, sensory garden, trim trail and much more – providing excellent outdoor space for the community
  • Shops and cafés – amenities for everyone to use
  • Hundreds of new homes, including affordable homes – providing homes for the borough of Wandsworth
  • A new care home – supporting the wider community
  • Land for a new school – investing in our children’s future
  • And investment in local transport facilities – boosting transport links for residents.
• By 2026 this will see Springfield transformed into a vibrant new community with mental health at its heart.
• The Springfield Village development is led by Master Developer STEP (The Springfield and Tolworth Estates Partnership) in collaboration with the Trust and partners including Sir Robert McAlpine, Barratt London, London Square, Lawrence Baker and City & Country.

KVA is looking for an energetic volunteer coordinator with a passion for, and experience in supporting people with learning disabilities and autistic people.

You will be running a face-to-face befriending scheme that enables people with learning disabilities and autistic people to enjoy social time and take part in leisure activities with a volunteer buddy.

This role will involve working with people in the community and will suit a person who strongly believes in the difference that volunteers can make.

The right candidate will have the opportunity to make the job their own.

Part time (14 hours per week)
Salary £29,827 per annum pro rata + 5% pension contribution
1 year contract with a possibility of extension depending on continued funding
Deadline applications: 22 May 2023

Visit kva.org.uk/jobs for more information

Battersea Volunteers, Link UP London & Battersea Power Station warmly invite you to a Volunteer Summer Celebration. They’d love the opportunity to say THANK YOU to all volunteers who have given their time and expertise to Battersea, Wandsworth and beyond this past year!

Where: Power of Place Exhibition Space, Battersea Power Station, North Entrance

When: Wednesday 7th June 2023

Time: 6.30-8.00pm

This is a wonderful opportunity to come together and meet others who are supporting the incredible charitable organisations working to improve the lives of those in their community. You have all made such a difference together!

We hope to see you there!

*With huge thanks to the Battersea Power Station for their support of this event by generously providing food, drinks and space!*

Sign up here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/volunteer-summer-drinks-nibbles-battersea-power-station-tickets-624517658127

Broken electrical or electronic items you don’t want to throw away?  
Sewing and mending that needs doing?

Join us at our next fixing and mending session 
May 20th 13.00 – 16.00
(no new fixes after 15.30)
St Mary’s Church, Balham High Road

Click HERE for full details