Group walks in support of bringing new mental health recovery hub to Inverness
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A GROUP took part in a 6K fund raising walk round Bught Park in Inverness recently in support of efforts to bring a Joshi Project hub to the city.
A large Kiltwalk was held recently in Edinburgh in support of the world acclaimed system for mental health recovery.
Inverness woman Joanna Kerr, a Joshi board member said: “It was difficult for us to get to Edinburgh, so we held our own walk.
“We feel Inverness desperately needs a Joshi Project hub.”
The Joshi Project and HUG Action for Mental Health, is in negotiations with NHS Highland to open Scotland’s first Trieste Model-based mental wellbeing Joshi Hub in Inverness.
Trieste in Italy has been a beacon of holistic, person-centred psychiatry reform since the 1970s and has been designated by the World Health Organisation as a “centre of excellence for mental health recovery”.
The hugely successful model is based on therapeutic principles of human rights and individualised recovery plans. It is centred around walk-in community wellbeing hubs, which are interlinked to community services, incorporating employment, job training, the arts, recreation and the life aspirations of sufferers.
Trieste’s methods and principals have been emulated in more than 30 countries, including Canada, Spain, France, Australia, Brazil and parts of the UK – including at least half a dozen NHS trusts across England and Wales.
Ms Kerr said: "As service users, we know better than anyone why the current mental health system of care and treatment needs to change and exactly what should be done about it. That why we support The Joshi Project and its plans to open a new, Trieste-style hub in Inverness that offers real, individualised recovery options with genuine compassion and dignity.”
In terms of recovery outcomes, as well as drastically reduced costs, is said the Trieste model remains one of the most successful models for mental illness recovery anywhere. Suicide rates in Trieste have halved over the past 15 years, while rates of drug addiction, hospitalisation, re-admission and homelessness have all plummeted.
The Joshi Project, named after the founders’ daughter, who died aged 24 in 2020, has been campaigning for the past two years to establish the Trieste model in Scotland.
