The Rise Awards 2011for excellence in improving the quality of life and well-being of mental health service users receiving support in the community

A. About the Awards

The Rise Awards are presented by Lemos&Crane who are sponsoring a prize of £1,500. Entries are invited from organisations working with mental health service users. In particular those organisations that deliver services in the community; residential care; supported housing; and to people at home.

Entries should be based on work in generating positive outcomes in one or more of the following three areas:

  • Developing positive personal identity: Examples might include work to enhance personal independence and control; service user involvement, choice and empowerment.
  • Developing and sustaining relationships. Examples might include work to enhance relationships with family and friends, loving relationships, relationships with pets and connections to communities and other networks or associations.
  • Promoting positive life satisfaction. Examples might include work to enhance contentment about finances, accommodation, employment, physical health and use of leisure time.

B. Timetable

  • Deadline for entries – 5pm FridayDecember 17, 2010
  • Shortlist announced – January 14, 2011
  • Winners announced – January 28, 2011.

C. Rules and procedures

  1. Entries must be completed using this entry form and submitted electronically here:
  2. Receipt of all entries submitted online will be automatically acknowledged.
  3. Entrants may be asked to provide further information.
  4. The judges' decision is final. Awards will be made at the judges' discretion and no correspondence will be entered into concerning any decision. Not all the awards advertised may be awarded if the judges consider the criteria have not been met. Additional commendations may be made at the judges' discretion.
  5. The content of any entry may be used for informing other practitioners and also for publicity purposes unless the entrant withholds their consent to this in writing.
  6. Entrants are deemed to have accepted these rules and procedures and to have agreed to be bound by them when entering this competition.

D. Your Entry

Please do not exceed 1500 words in total.

  1. Your contact details

Full name / Emma Willits
Organisation / Rotherham Doncaster and South Humber Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust (RDaSH)
Telephone number / 01302 821410
Email address /
Address / Jade Centre, Askern Road, Bentley, Doncaster
Postcode / DN5 0JR
  1. Name of project you are entering for the Rise Awards

Doncaster Early Interventions Health and Well-being Project
  1. Describe your project in one sentence

The project provides service users with an innovative holistic health care package- advising on lifestyle factors and encouraging and supporting behaviour change.
  1. Specify the setting(s) where your project is delivered (eg day centre, residential, drop-in, supported housing, etc)?

Service users are visited at home or attend the office, depending on personal preference. Physical activity interventions take place in various community venues e.g. Leisure Centre’s.
  1. What are the project’s objectives?

  • To assess the physical health of service users from an Early Intervention(EI) in psychosis service.
  • To educate and support service users and their care network on the importance of sound physical health and wellbeing by a qualified professional in the field.
  • To provide tailored exercise interventions that stimulates a motivated and sustained approach to lifestyle change.
  • To promote social inclusion and engagement in team activities.
  • To holistically evaluate an individual’s wellbeing using various assessment tools.
  • To reduce the burden of physical health related co-morbidities(e.g. obesity and diabetes), to both the individuals and to the NHS, as a whole.
  • To signpost service users to local leisure/wellbeing services, e.g. smoking cessation and sexual health.

  1. What are the project’s activities?

Clients complete a physical health questionnaire and nutritional and exercise assessments. Measures determining physical health are recorded including:
  • Weight
  • Height
  • BMI
  • Body fat percentage
  • Blood pressure
  • Heart rate
  • Waist Circumference.
Evidence from the nutritional assessment is analysed. Feedback is created enabling individuals to make dietary changes where necessary. Other information required by the client is provided along with the feedback including: recipes, information sheets and healthy eating plans. Nutritional supplements can be prescribed for a short period, whilst the individual changes their diet. Advice is given about the benefits of leading a healthy lifestyle including promoting physical activity rand information about local exercise opportunities. This advice also helps the client’s families, as information helps to change everyone’s lifestyle.
A football group has been established whichgained funding from the local council, allowing the group to play inside at Doncaster Dome. The group have also attended a tour of Keepmoat Stadium and had coaching sessions with Doncaster Rovers Community Football team. The team have games against other EI teams so other service users benefit from the funding. A Badminton group has been set up alongside this group. Both these groups engage people who have not wanted the health and wellbeing assessment but have still benefitted from attending the groups. In October 2009 a football tournament was arranged for RDASH EI teams during the Time to Change “Get Moving Week”. This community event also helped to tackle stigma associated with mental health.
Partnerships have been developed with organisations including Doncaster Council, The Dome leisure centre and Doncaster Rovers FC. This has raised the profile of RDASH and service user needs in the wider community and supported social inclusion.
Other support which has been included during the project is listed below:
  • Providing leisure card and free activities application forms
  • Arranging gym inductions and supporting clients to attend
  • Providing information exercise referral and supporting people attending classes e.g. back care class.
  • Refer to the smoking cessation service.
  • Specialist dietary and obesity management work using visual aids.
  • Referrals to PCT weight management schemes such as ‘Healthy Weight Solutions’ if required as extra support.

  1. What has been the impact of the project (please include any feedback or evaluation)?

So far 54 people have completed the health and wellbeing assessment. Some individuals requested the nutritional assessment only. Baseline and post intervention data has been analysed using SPSS(Statistical Package for the Social Sciences). The results show that activity levels have significantly increased and there has been no statistical change in weight and body fat percentage. This is a positive result as there is vast evidence to show that antipsychotic medication is linked with weight gain. One study looked at weight gain amongst young people treated with antipsychotic medication over a 12 week period. The results showed that the mean weight gain across the treatment groups varied from 8.5kg with Olazapine to 4.4kg with Aripiprazole(Varley & McClellan, 2009).
The following case studies outline the benefits of the project.
1. Male service user aged 47 who lacks motivation and generally spends a lot of time sitting in his chair. He has put on weight due to his sedentary lifestyle and the Clozapine medication he is on. Since the Health and Wellbeing Project began he has engaged regularly with the Badminton group and has cut his drinking down from four cans of lager every night to a few times a week. Although his weight has stayed the same his body fat has decreased from 40.0 to 30.6 over approximately five months.
2.Before the football group was established this 21 year old male service user didn’t participate in any groups run by Early Interventions or have social contact with people outside of his family. Since joining the football group his social skills have improved and he has made friends within the group. He is now attending other Early Intervention groups twice a week and going out on walks. Recently the football team played a match at Doncaster Dome. His family (carers) came to watch and were proud to take a picture of him in his team kit. This shows the positive impact of the intervention of the family and also the service user’s confidence.
3. One 25 year old female who was underweight improved her diet significantly since having a nutritional assessment. Before the assessment she ate one meal per day, sometimes not having any food, only cups of tea with sugar. The nutritional review showed that she now eats regular meals and has started cooking, cutting down on the amount of processed food she consumes, halved the amount of sugar in tea, decreased her intake from saturated fat and increased her intake of poly-unsaturated fat. After the review she was keen to improve her diet further and requested another assessment before the six month review. She has also been supported to attend a gym induction and the health and wellbeing measures show that she is now a healthy weight.
Service user satisfaction questionnaire
Individuals and carer’s have completed a questionnaire. The results are shown below:
  1. Being involved in the Health and Wellbeing Project has been helpful to me.

  1. The Health and Wellbeing project has improved my quality of life

  1. The Health and Wellbeing Project has improved my relationship with the Early Interventions team.

Service user quotes
“I enjoy participating in the health and wellbeing practice, it helps me a lot with everyday life”
“I like being with the group, getting out of the house and meeting new people”
“Although by the time I first became involved with the health and well-being project I had already made changes to my diet and exercise. The advice and help given has been useful and I feel that physical well-being has a significant effect on mental health”
Carer Quotes
“Emma has been really helpful in getting my son motivated. He is gradually changing his lifestyle for the better. She has a really encouraging personality and easy go approach”
“This is an excellent project which has helped changed my son from a vegetable that sat and cried and weed himself back into my son who is a helpful beautiful member of society”
“Emma is helpful, informative, patient and always available. The football gives my son confidence and socialising is important”

8.What are your plans for developing the project further?

If the pilot post is continued we will continue to offer physical health assessments and provide interventions. After further training it is planned to offer smoking cessation advice/support.We also aim to continue to build partnerships with organisations to increase opportunities for service users. A lottery bid working in partnership with Doncaster Rovers Community Foundation is currently in progresswhich aims to develop a health and wellbeing training and education course for service users across the Trust. This would give 60-70 service users the opportunity to take part in healthy lifestyle interventions e.g. cooking with club chefs and training, such as First Aid. This will help to improve the physical health of service users across the Trust as well as in EI. Other plans include: working to improve the nutritional value of ward food and delivering health and wellbeing training to service users on the wards. We hope to apply for funding to maintain the Football and Badminton at Dome. This will enable service users to be supported to organise another football tournamentallowing other EI teams to benefit across the country.

E. Submitting your entry

Please return this entry form by 5pm, Friday 17 December 2010 by uploading it on this page:

On this page you can also add documents, photos, videos or other media that are relevant to your entry.

If you have problems sending us your entry then please email for help.

Thank you for entry.

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