Why choose Rethink Mental Illness?

As the leading national membership mental health charity, Rethink Mental Illness has over 11,000 members who work with us to reach more poelple, improve more lives and change the way everyone affected by severe mental illness is regarded, treated and cared for. Our members help us to influence the media, the Government and the public - and help shape our organisation for the future. Through our wide network, including over 150 groups for carers, volunteers and people who use our services, we ensure that everything we do is driven by the needs of people who use our services and carers, and evaluated by them too, so that we can continue to deliver excellence in everything we do. The involvement of people who use our services, carers and members is encouraged and supported within Rethink Mental ilness at all levels. This ensures that our governance structure reflects the needs of the people we support. Our Board of Trustees is largely composed of poelp who have used mental health services and carers.

The knowledge and experience of our members is fundamental to the way we work and helps us focus our campaigning activities on issues that directly affect our members' lives. Our media team is skilled at generating positive coverage in national and local press and broadcast media promoting services and referrals.

We are regularly commissioned to run consultation events at national, regional and local level which influence national policy and the delivery of regional and local services. Our service user and carer panel was a crucial element of Lord Bradley's 2009 Review of Diversion and the crominal justice system. A number of case studies from members of our panel are included throughout his report, and our key asks are echoed through his recommendations.  

We have an established framework of integrated service governance designed to ensure that our services are safe and effective, and informed by the best available evidence base, and the experiences of people who use our services and carers. This inclusive approach ensures that our services maintain a high standard of support, consultation and a commitment to recovery.

Our workforce is skilled and passionate about delivering the best service and supporting people who use our services with their recovery journey. We hold Gold Investor in People status and offer continuous learning opportunities for our staff. We have also exceeded the national minimum standard for staff in registered care services to hold an NVQ level 2 qualification equivalent or higher.

So that we and our commissioners understand what is effective, our research team is independently funded to work with staff and people who use our services to collate evidence about our services. We use this to continually review our services to ensure that we bring value for money solutions with a tried and tested evidence base and help reduce inappropriate and expensive hospital admissions. Our talking therapies services for example, deliver NICE approved, evidence-based psychological wellbeing interventions.

On a wider scale, as a leading campaigning organisation, we have the ear of politicans and policy makers in your area. Our research is informing national policy agendas in mental health and we are continually working with Government to create positive policy changes across health and social care. Commissioners can benefit from thiswork, staying up to date with policy changes and developments through our campaign, parliamentary and research reports.