England
The Mental Health Group provides a safe space for mental health students and social workers from all backgrounds to:
- Prioritise mental health issues from the BASW England Business Plan and actions to be taken in response to legislative and operational issues impacting on social work, social workers and the communities they support. This has involved working groups on the Mental Health Act review and Mental Capacity (Amendment) Bill.
- Uphold BASW principles on equal opportunities and anti-oppressive practice in mental health education, practice and evaluation.
- Respond to local and national issues and developments by contributing to consultations, working parties/groups outside BASW, using alliances with other groups and links with the media.
- Contribute to BASW policy development and to raising standards in mental health practice.
- Support social workers in practice by developing, commissioning or otherwise support good quality education and practitioner research opportunities in mental health.
- Provide support and linkage to other relevant BASW groups and external groups/stakeholders.
Email denise.monks@basw.co.uk for more information about how to get involved.
Resources and work undertaken by the group:
- BASW responds to Met police decision to attend fewer mental health calls | BASW
- Anti-Racist perspectives and the AMHP role - This exciting webinar was delivered as a collaboration between BASW England Mental Health Thematic Group and the Chief Social Workers Office, DHSC and can be viewed here https://youtu.be/PjL0qOQyYNY This webinar provided an excellent opportunity to learn about contemporary research, policy, professional Anti-Racist ‘lived experience’ perspectives in the context of AMHP Practice.
- The group supported the updating of the 2009 guidance "debt and mental health final demand" the revised version was published in May 2023 and can be found here debt-and-mental-health-final-demand-may-2023-final.pdf (mentalhealthandmoneyadvice.org)
- The group supported the BASW UK response to Joint Committee on the Draft Mental Health Bill | www.basw.co.uk
- Mental Health Thematic group report on Section 117 survey: Analysis of the British Association of Social Workers (BASW) Mental Health Thematic Group Section 117 (Mental Health Act 1983) Survey | www.basw.co.uk
- BASW UK response to the draft Mental Health Bill: BASW response to draft Mental Health Bill | www.basw.co.uk
- DHSC Mental health and wellbeing plan. BASW England’s response to the Department for Health and Social Care’s call for evidence: Mental health and wellbeing plan: BASW England’s response to the Department for Health and Social Care’s call for evidence | www.basw.co.uk
- The group added its support to an open letter co-ordinated by the Stop Sim campaign to NHS England expressing concern in relation to their response to Serenity Integrated Monitoring (SIM). The full letter can be found here.
Articles published by members of the group:
Mental health assessments of children – we must do better | www.basw.co.uk
In a medical model, we can’t ignore the spiritual - pg 31 psw-nov-dec-2022.pdf (basw.co.uk)
Concern mental health patients missing s117 aftercare support - pg 8 psw-sep-oct-2022.pdf (basw.co.uk)