Initiative launched to promote talking therapies

Posted May 25th 2017

Welsh mental health charity Hafal have launched an initiative to promote access to evidence based psychological therapies - or talking therapies as they are more widely known.

Let’s Talk! will deliver a number of initiatives and services including the establishment of a Centre of Excellence for Psychological Therapies – the first of its kind in Wales. The Observatory is currently recruiting  network members from across Wales and is interested in finding examples of best practice around access and delivery of talking therapies.

Sitting alongside the work undertaken by the Observatory, Let’s Talk! provides a psychological therapies forum via Clic, an online community for people in Wales with a mental illness and their carers, and dedicated user-friendly guides about talking therapy.

It will also deliver a number of training programmes including Advocacy Training for people with a lived experience of serious mental illness and their families and carers. The Advocacy Training programme will assist people to access psychological therapies and also aims to up-skill Hafal staff so that they can advocate for talking therapies on their clients behalf.

Hafal (meaning ‘equal’) is the principal Third Sector organisation in Wales working for and managed by people with a serious mental illness and their carers. Hafal is founded on the belief that people who have direct experience of mental illness know best how services can be delivered.

Providing support across the seven local health board areas of Wales, Hafal is dedicated to empowering people with serious mental illness and their families to:

• achieve a better quality of life
• fulfil their ambitions for recovery
• fight discrimination
• enjoy equal access to health and social care, housing, income, education, and employment

If you would like to find out more about Let’s Talk or become involved as a Observatory Member please get in touch with the Let’s Talk! team by emailing lets.talk@hafal.org or telephone 01792 861100.

Let’s Talk! is funded for three years by the Big Lottery People and Places Programme.