Research

Mind in Bexley carry out original and secondary research, targeted projects and related policy work. Through original and secondary research, and in collaboration with others agencies including our academic partners the University of Kent and Christchurch University, we review and evaluate existing practice and challenge current thinking.

We seek to promote and publish research that leads to the development of good practice in services for people suffering from mental distress – in the NHS, in health and social care provision, employment – and support the needs of service users and their carers.

Personal Health Budgets

The NHS Long Term Plan published in January 2019 made a clear commitment to expand personalised care and Personal Health Budgets, with a specific expectation that these will be offered within mental health services as part of plans for up to 200,000 people to benefit by 2023/24. One of the key drivers behind Personal Health Budgets is giving people greater choice and control over the support they access to manage their mental health as this increases their prospects of recovery.

The South London Mental Health & Community Partnership (SLP) and South East London CCG Personalisation lead commissioned Mind in Bexley to develop a programme of engagement to draw on the expertise of people with lived experience of mental health difficulties regarding Personal Health Budgets.

The research provides valuable information for commissioners and service providers in designing a pathway to support the uptake of Personal Health Budgets across the SLP and thereby increasing recovery outcomes, choice and control.

Executive Summary

PHB Full Report 

PHB Digital Exhibition

‘Care for me at home’ Domiciliary care study

Mind in Bexley and Healthwatch Bexley have recently completed an oral history research study which explores the impact of Home (Domiciliary) care on the well-being and quality of life of services users in Bexley. We hope that the research findings on the quality of Home Care services will help to improve service provision in the Borough. The findings have been reported to the Commissioners, Health and Wellbeing Board and Healthwatch England.

Care For Me At Home Exhibition PDF Download

Care for Me at Home Full Report 

Beat Project

Beat 720p from Global Stories on Vimeo.

An evaluation of the impact that Peer Support has on participants who accessed the BEAT project in the London Borough of Bexley
Beat Project Evaluation Report
Beat Project Booklet

Social Prescribing

Social Prescribing in Bexley Pilot Evaluation Report

Mind have received funding to undertake a research/needs assessment and signposting and awareness raising project with young migrants who have claimed asylum as children and who have now turned 18. This group faces multiple deprivations because of their disrupted childhood, their often traumatic experiences prior to arriving in the UK, their status as care leavers and as migrants in the UK. We will undertake interviews (n=15), run workshops (n=5) to explore mental health needs, develop an exhibition to raise public/professional awareness of this groups mental well-being, explore peer support initiatives and signpost if appropriate to support.

Seeking Safety: Immigration Reporting (Film)

‘Seeking Safety: Immigration Reporting’ is part of a longer film about young asylum seekers in Kent. It focuses on one element of their experience as Care Leavers without secure immigration status in the UK. The film shows a young man reporting to Becket House, an Immigration Reporting Office at London Bridge. Young people seeking asylum in the UK usually enter the care of local authority social services. They are treated as children in care until they reach adulthood but can lose entitlement to care leaver’s support and to all welfare benefits, education and the right to work if they are refused refugee status or another form of international protection. Young care leavers face forced return to countries they fled from as children.
Reporting, or signing as many people call it, refers to the obligation placed on people with insecure immigration status to report, on a regular basis, to the Immigration authorities. Signing demonstrates that they are complying with the Home Office’s conditions on their stay in the UK but is a form of surveillance experienced as punishment by those who undergo it. While reporting, migrants can be detained for deportation so it is a very stressful experience for asylum seekers who fear return to countries of origin. Many people reporting have been doing so for months or years and many have families in the UK.
The young man portrayed in this film is still in the UK waiting for the result of his appeal against a negative asylum decision.
‘Seeking Safety’ was directed by Jess Dadds. It was funded by Mind in Bexley and made with the help of Kent Refugee Action Network

The mental wellbeing of young former unaccompanied asylum seeking children in East Kent – Final Report
Exhibition ‘Seeking safety’ – The mental health of care leavers refused asylum and living in East Kent, UK.

Previous Research Papers

A selection of our previous research is available to download
Article based on the Minding Histories Oral History Project, published in the Journal of Family and Community History
Mind in Bexley’s paper ‘Getting to know you’: reflections on a specialist independent mental health advocacy service for Bexley and Bromley residents in forensic settings published in Mental Health Review.
Moving Stories – Health Trainers
Research into Childrens CBT by Mind in Belxey
No one knows like we do’: the narratives of mental health service users trained as researchers
With Carers in Mind