Mental Health & Wellbeing Community Forum at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium | News

Last week we held our first partnership community mental health and wellbeing forum event at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. The focus of the event was on addressing health inequalities, a topic decided by a team of Experts by Experience* who planned and organised the event. It was a public event that saw over 100 people attend. There was representation from members of the public, service users and carers, community and voluntary organisations and staff from across the partnership.

Throughout the day there were powerful conversations around health inequalities and what the partnership is doing to reduce them with a specific focus on access to services.

There were many panel discussions and topics discussed during the day including:

• Intervention and Crisis Support
• Patient and Carer Race Equality Framework
• Talking Therapies
• Community Transformation Teams

Community Engagement Lead Jordelle Akinola from our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion team said:

“It was fantastic to have people from across Camden, Islington, Barnet, Enfield, and Haringey all in one room. I found service user stories particularly inspiring. There were several people at the event who had previously used our services and are now working in peer support roles across the partnership. There is a lot to be learnt from these stories about how to make improvements to our services. Thank you to everyone who shared their story.”

We heard from three amazing guest speakers on the day:

• Courtney Brown, CEO of Father2Father and Vice Chair of Open Mind Alliance (OMA)
• Wanda Wyporska, CEO of Black Equity Organisation
• Shocka, an Artist and Author.

Kenneth Erhahon, better known by his stage name Shocka, is a rapper and mental health advocate who was born and raised in Tottenham. Shocka shared that during his career he was dropped from his record label. This was completely unexpected and really took a toll on his mental health, which led to him being sectioned. He said:

“In Tottenham, we don’t talk about mental health. The word sectioned was new to me. I had an uncle who was a doctor in Nigeria who was living with us and he told my mum we had to call a doctor. Events like these are so important at raising awareness of Mental Health so that people get the care they need”.

We received some fantastic feedback after the event and are planning on doing another partnership wide event next year, alongside some smaller borough specific events.

We would like to thank everyone who attended and helped to organise the event – it was a huge success!

*An Expert by Experience is someone who has personal experience of using a service. They can be service users, carers or family members of someone who uses or has used a service.