Civic Engagement Day - Monday 18th May

The Mental Health Activity Trust

Dr Helen Murphy of the University of East London is a stakeholder in a relatively new and vibrant charity. The Mental Health Activity Trust supports people with mental health problems, find employment and social inclusion.

 

CEO and Founder Toni Hale, a former psychology student of Helen’s at Goldsmiths, established the charity in April 2012 to support people with a mental health problem find employment that is paid either with the MHA Trust or with other organisations. The charity is currently campaigning for a psychologist to be positioned in every organisation or industry across the country.

 

In order to provide employment for those with mental ill health and to finance the charity's work, Toni opened a charity shop on the office premises in Blackheath which is proving to be a great success. Twenty-two people, predominately with mental health problems are employed by the organisation either on a voluntary or paid basis and the staff are proving to be highly motivated and committed to the cause.

 

Since its launch, the Mental Health Activity Trust has achieved outstanding results in its mission, finding employment for eight people in full or part time work with fifty two other people being supported either in work or in their quest to find work currently. If you want to find out more then check out the website www.mhatrust.webs.com, alternatively you can call 020 36384712 or email mhatrust@live.co.uk for further information. You can also pop in for a visit at MHA Trust Shop 15 Delacourt Road SE3 8XA.

Research Day and Dean's BBQ 15th July 2015

We would like to invite all School staff to our next Research Day and the Dean's BBQ on  Wednesday, July 15th, 2015.

We would welcome presentations from all staff, postgraduate students, and research fellows.

For the Abstract, please include: Your name, post (staff post or PhD student/Postdoctoral Fellow etc), and a brief abstract  up to ~500 words.  

Please submit your Abstracts to Cindy by Monday, June 1st, 2015.

And following Research Day, Mark will be hosting his annual Dean's BBQ.

Do reserve the date.  We will send more details closer to the date.


Cindy - on behalf of RMT

Dr Ian Tucker awarded funding for social media and mental health follow on project

Dr Ian Tucker has secured 10k follow on funding from the EPSRC Communities and Culture Network+ to develop an innovate method for online user engagement and to further investigate the impact of peer support through the mental health charity Mind’s online community, Elefriends. The project follows on from the ’Social Media and Austerity: Online Peer Support in Mental Health Communities’ project that ran in 2014. The initial project aimed to provide a working definition of ‘online peer-support’, and to address the experiences of a vulnerable community through exploring the capacity of service users to enhance their mental health by engaging with peer support practices through social media.

The follow on project involves the use of an animated storyboard to engage users with the findings from initial project and to provide the opportunity for user feedback on the analysis as well as the animated storyboard as a dissemination tool. Further analysis of project data will be conducted to examine how talk of treatment acts as a central topic for community engagement on Elefriends. The pilot project identified this as a core issue for which people sought (and provided) online peer support.

Follow on work will facilitate knowledge transfer with other social media initiatives in health and mental health arenas.