Exciting collaboration within the Global Village Network. After connecting at the World Health Innovation Summit in Cumbria in March 2016 and setting up Global Village Mental Health, Deirdre and I are continuing to innovate ways we can support health and wellbeing in all corners of the globe.

With that in mind and inspired by Deirdre’s wealth of experience in working to increase the capacity of midwives to impact family and infant health, and my project My Way Code’s simple, accessible person-centre approach to self management and supporting good mental health, we have combined this into a new model that can be used in many settings around the world.

• Person-centred, self-assessment of children and families with healthcare professional including ongoing peer support for identified needs and goals.
• Peer support circles supervised by same HCP’s in the community setting.
• HCP supervised by health care system, peers and or colleagues.
• Governed and safeguarded by the Country specific National or Regional Health System.

The model helps people see where they sit in the above structure and who they already have to support them and where to access and go to in their community for more. Linked to Peer Support Circles (with guidelines, resources from us and support and Peer Supervision with the Health Care Professional).

With the family using shapes or coins, buttons, stones …. to symbolise each person involved in their lives placed in each of the circles including; supporters, extended family, HCP’s, peer support groups, community leaders etc…Once the Health Care Professional has helped the family members with their self-assessments each individual will choose goals and small steps they can make towards reaching further up a scale of 0-10.

This simple idea and structure means that other models and goals can be easily communicated and measured.

This is a brief summary of the model with more assessment tools and support resources for the process of working with the family members and setting up and running Peer Support Circles.

Deirdre and I would welcome any interest in more information and feedback.

Authors: Soni Cox @MWCSoni & Deirdre Munro @DeirdreMunro

© Soni Cox, Deirdre Munro 2016