Quality recognition for charity

Tricia Hornby CEO of Rochdale & District Mind collecting the MHFA champions award from Simon Western OBE, Professor Lord Patel OBE & Nigel Jones, Partner and Co-Head of Healthcare sector Linklaters LLP

Rochdale and District Mind has been recognised with a series of awards and accreditations.

The charity has been presented with the ‘Mental Health First Aid Champions’ award at a ceremony at the House of Lords.

The award, presented by Lord Patel and Simon Weston, recgonises those who have worked hard to present mental health and wellbeing and help to increase understanding of mental health issues.

Rochdale and District Mind is a champion of mental health first aid training and have three members of staff qualified in delivering these two day courses.

Chief Executive Tricia Hornby, accepted the award, she said: “Most people are familiar with first aid training for physical health but up to now mental health has been largely ignored.

“We are pleased that we can now offer this training as we know that knowing how to respond to someone experiencing mental distress is just as important as physical health first aid.”

The charity has also been recommended for ISO 9001 (International Organisation for Standardisation) registration following a successful final assessment this week with the British Standards Institute. BSI has recognised that Rochdale and District Mind provide high quality services to local people with mental health needs.

To add to the list of recognitions in January Rochdale and District Mind’s counselling service was awarded accreditation by the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. This accreditation provides validation for the professionalism and quality of the counseling service and has been achieved by only a handful of Mind associations across the country.

Mrs Hornby said: “It is a testament to the hard work of the counselling team, which consists of thirty volunteers and two paid members of staff, and the organisation as a whole that we were able to gain this esteemed standard.”

Rochdale and District Mind’s Advocacy in Mind project were the first in the Country to attain Action for Advocacy’s Quality Performance Mark for the quality provision of their Advocacy services. In January they were able to add to this by achieving the Quality Performance Mark for their Independent Mental Capacity Advocacy (IMCA) service.

Rochdale and District Mind are now one of only five organizations across the country to have achieved both of these highly regarded quality standards.