Barnet’s Mental Health Charter

We have launched a Mental Health Charter to support mental health and foster a culture of positive mental wellbeing across the borough.

The charter is aspirational for us, describing what we want for the Barnet of the future. It is a key part of our plan to support the mental health of people living and working in the borough and deliver positive change.

Why your support matters

By signing up to the charter, you will:

• demonstrate your commitment for enhancing mental health and wellbeing in Barnet
• join key Council partners, businesses, and statutory bodies that share the same commitment
• contribute to making a difference in the lives of people living and working in the borough

How to sign up

We are asking council partners, local businesses and statutory bodies to sign up to the Charter and pledge to support its delivery over the next 12 months.

Pledge to support mental health in Barnet

Our Mental Health Charter

Mental health affects everyone

Mental health should be considered in all local decision-making because it affects everyone, but everyone’s experiences are individual. It is important as physical health, so we recognise it has a huge impact on wellbeing.

Supported by positive connections and activities

Mental health is impacted by people’s life circumstances and harmed by stigma and prejudice. We must consider the impact of broader cultural, economic and political issues, as well as people’s experience of poverty, inequality and exclusion.

We are a supportive and inclusive borough

We look after each other and support each others’ mental health in the community, as family, friends, carers, networks, partners, employers or neighbours. By actively challenging stigma and prejudice, we raise awareness and improve understanding around mental health. In support of this, we empower the public and professionals to make every conversation count for mental health.

Support for mental health across all ages in our schools and in the workplace is key. Our schools and employers actively promote better mental health and respond to mental health issues among their young people and staff.

Fighting inequality and not accepting that inequality is inevitable is important to improving mental health and wellbeing.

We support people to choose life. One suicide is too many and there is always an alternative.

Barnet resident focused

People living in the borough are:

• empowered to speak about, seek support with their mental health, and to make their own decisions, where they have capacity to do so
• informed and able to get accessible information about how and where to get help with their mental health
• treated with dignity and respect
• listened to and confident that their needs will be understood and acted upon in a timely manner
• supported through being able to access a comprehensive range of support, from preventative services in the community to specialist care, when and where they are needed. Residents are supported quickly and effectively in times of crisis and distress

Our expectation from services

We expect services that support mental health in Barnet to:

• work with people that have experience of mental health issues. Coproduction is at the heart of the development of strategies and the design, delivery and review of services
• take a whole-person approach. People are treated as people, not a diagnosis or a number. Services focus on the positive outcomes that each person wants to achieve and work to understand the trauma that people have experienced and how that affects them now
• work together. People don’t fall through gaps or have to tell their story twice, because services communicate with each other and don’t duplicate. Specialist services recognise the importance of the non-medical aspects of mental health and the big role that charities and community groups play in supporting them
• keep waiting times short. Services actively work to maintain short waiting times and provide support to those who are waiting
• help to keep people safe. Services offer a safe space where people feel welcomed and a sense of belonging. Staff are trained in safeguarding so they can identify signs of abuse or neglect and help to keep residents safe
• be inclusive. Services respect people’s protected characteristics, understanding different cultures, sexual identities, neurodiversity and access needs, including digital skills. They continuously look at adaptations needed and train their staff to meet a range of needs. Services are offered in a range of locations (to be close to where people live) and offer face to face options