Since January, LGBT Foundation have been working with the Greater Manchester and East Cheshire Strategic Clinical Network and Survivors Manchester, to deliver a range of workshops with BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) communities from across Greater Manchester. Together we explored how IAPT (Improving Access to Psychological Therapies) services can be improved for BAME people to tackle inequalities in experiencing mental ill health.

All organisations involved shared their expertise, with LGBT Foundation contributing our knowledge of developing our IAPT programme for within a voluntary sector setting. We encouraged other voluntary groups and communities to develop ideas to help improve engagement in mental health support. A report has now been produced to share the learning from these events, which can be downloaded by clicking here. The report captures the outcomes and ideas from the project that will now be used to improve engagement with BAME people in IAPT services.

LGBT Foundation are delighted to be recognised as an example of good practice of delivering IAPT services and to be able to share our experience with our partners. Equally, we gained new ideas and insights from our partners and look forward to using them to keep making our services the best they can be.