Arty-Folks is welcoming a new staff member, Chris Spicer, who has been attending a Creative Peer Support group at our Coventry studios since the start of ’23. Chris is now our REACH Peer Support Worker and will be working along partners Valley Housing, Citizens Advice, and members of the Cultural Inclusion Network including Inini, Sahil, Ekta Unity, Ambacare, the Tamarind Centre, and Coventry Muslim Forum.
Realising Everyone’s Access to Community Help (REACH) is a brand new service that will support the delivery of the Community Mental Health Transformation programme of the NHS. REACH is the result of a fantastic collaboration by a consortium of over 70 local providers (VCFSE MHAlliance) spearheaded by Rethink Mental Illness, Experts by Experience and NHS Coventry&Warwickshire Partnership Trust.
This new innovative and exciting collaboration of services has opened up the opportunity to move away from disjointed and silo working to a new integrated, flexible, responsive and personalised model of care for adults with severe mental health needs who are either waiting for secondary care Mental Health Services or are being discharged.
We are excited to be working in close collaboration with our partners across Voluntary, Community, Faith, and Social Enterprise Mental Health to provide a holistic service to members of all communities from different back grounds. Arty-Folks is proud to be part of this new initiative that will ensure that the most vulnerable members of our community are supported to access opportunities in a manner most suited to their needs.