One year on: Celebrating the success of our Be Well Hubs

Everybody should be within 10 minutes of someone who can help them with their mental health. That was the vision which kickstarted Be Well Hubs.

One year since their launch, we are celebrating the 56 Be Well Hubs which are now operating across South London. At the start of June, events were held in Wimbledon and Lewisham to bring together Be Well Champions from across different hubs to listen to each other, reflect on the challenges they face, share solutions and celebrate their work over the last year.

Karl, who is part of a hub in Kingston & New Malden, attended the celebration event in Wimbledon: “It’s really inspiring to be here and so lovely to hear stories from the other hubs…it’s good to meet people from the other boroughs as well.”

Likewise, Nicole, who is part of a hub organised by Holistic Well Woman, said that the Lewisham event “was very refreshing and it was informative. It’s so nice to see all the different hubs and where they all are collaborating and helping each other.”

Be Well Hubs were created to connect people with each other and to the local services which can support their mental health. Hub members take part in mental health training to become Be Well Champions in their communities. The aim is to de-stigmatise mental health, use community organising to build strong relationships, and organise leaders to listen and take action against the systematic causes of mental ill-health.

Faith groups, schools or community organisations can access training to become a Be Well Hub in their local area. One hub operates from the Lucas Vale Primary School in Lewisham, which brings together parents to discuss mental health at a weekly coffee morning. Henry, a parent at Lucas Vale, said that the Hub “has been worthwhile…when all us parents can come together and take it further, it’s amazing…sharing one voice.”

Henry, a parent at Lucas Vale Primary School, said it’s been “amazing” to be part of a Be Well Hub.

The goal for the next year of Be Well Hubs is to maintain the momentum felt at the events. The Be Well Champions took part in a reflective exercise and considered how they could continue to work best in their communities. They agreed that reaching out beyond their own hubs to talk and share ideas and learnings was a good place to start.

In late summer, we will be producing our first evaluation report setting out progress against the goals of our programme and making recommendations for how this work can be built upon.

Over the coming months we’ll be continuing to work in partnership with our inspirational Be Well leaders – and support the Be Well hubs to take vital action to improve mental health across south London communities.

Be Well Champions took part in reflective exercises to visually represent the challenges and successes from the last year.

You can find out more about Be Well Hubs and how to train Champions in your community here.