Wandsworth Care Alliance

What is Kooth? The free mental health service for young people

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What is Kooth? 4 young people sat against a red background holding paper speech bubbles over their faces

What is Kooth?

Kooth is a free, safe, anonymous online mental health service for young people that is accessible 24/7, 365 days of the year and provides access to chat sessions with BACP-accredited counsellors and qualified emotional wellbeing practitioners.

All our chat sessions are text-based conversations that take place on the Kooth website, and last up to an hour. Chat is available from 12pm – 10pm Monday through Friday, and 6pm – 10pm Saturday and Sunday, providing a much needed ‘out of hours’ service.

Kooth is accessible from any device.

koothplc.com

Are you able to see all content on the site?

There are restrictions in place to ensure that when using Kooth, you only see what is age appropriate for you. This also helps us to ensure you find the content that is most useful to you.

Any comments are pre-moderated to ensure that only relevant comments are posted and visible.

Can you create content on Kooth?

You can submit content and post on the discussion boards to share your experiences and to support others within the Kooth community.

We also encourage you to give us feedback by sharing your views of how we deliver our service.

This will help us to keep improving Kooth.

Can you message other young people on Kooth?

The safety of our users on Kooth is really important to us.

Therefore, you cannot add friends or directly message other young people on the site in the same way you can on gaming platforms or social media sites.

This is because we are an anonymous service and we need to make sure everyone using the site is safe.

When can you talk to someone?

The Kooth team are available to chat 7 days a week, 365* days of the year. You can access the magazine, discussion boards and any other online content whenever you like, from wherever you are.

Our friendly online team are available to chat during the following times:

From 12 noon until 10pm weekdays.

From 6pm until 10pm weekends.

To make sure we can support as many of you as possible, we do have a chat queue.

How long you will have to wait in the chat queue depends on how busy the site is so please be patient with us.

You can send a message to the team at any time and it will be responded to during service working hours. Our counsellors are employed by us and are fully qualified with the BACP or equivalent.

Do you need to be referred by a GP?

You do not need to be referred to Kooth to access the service.

You are invited and welcome to join as long as you fall within the age of 10-25.

Health & Wellness Coaching for Chronic Pain? Local Hospitals Pilot Social Prescribing Programme

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Wandsworth resident June said she has “regained control of her life” after living with chronic pain, thanks to a pilot health project with social prescribing services in hospitals. June was referred to the chronic pain service at St George’s where she started working with a Health and Wellbeing Coach, Sam.

June’s problems with pain started after she was injured in an accident on her 70th birthday. “I was left in excruciating pain running from my head to my feet and had tried everything to help after being diagnosed with fibromyalgia,” she said.

“I was stressed at home over house repairs, pain and was gaining weight.”

June claims that receiving coaching has changed her life and given her a sense of self worth.

“Often, hospital pain clinics will have exhausted medical options such as medication or procedures.” Dr Sekeram. Early results from this pilot are due to end later this year.

Read the full article, https://www.southwestlondonics.org.uk/local-stories/pilot-health-project-restores-lives-of-people-in-chronic-pain/?dm_i=790E,H7WT,1I0FFW,25XBS,1

Wandsworth Council Double Cost-of-Living Fund from £5m-£10m

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Wandsworth Council have announced that their support for residents to face the cost-of-living crisis has doubled, using careful budgeting to ensure that council tax stays low.

Councillor Hogg said: “This week we’ve announced that we’ll double our budget for supporting people through the Cost of Living Crisis to £10m – making our response the capital’s biggest.

“We know families are struggling to pay for basics like fuel and food and there’s no sign of things improving anytime soon.

“That’s why we’re putting another £5m into our Cost of Living reserve fund. We’ve also ringfenced more money to help refugees and the homeless.

“We’re funding free gym and swim and free school uniforms for low-income families.

“Now, using the insights of the Wandsworth Cost of Living Commission, we will look at longer-term action we and the community as a whole can take to reduce the effects of the crisis in the future.

Have you, or people you work with been adversely affected by the cost-of-living crisis in Wandsworth? Do you have any views on how the borough can support mental health services during this time? We invite you to voice your views.

Read more about the Council’s approach to the cost-of-living crisis here,

https://www.wandsworth.gov.uk/news/news-july-2023/council-leader-announces-doubling-of-funds-to-help-residents-through-cost-of-living-crisis/?utm_medium=email&utm_name=&utm_source=govdelivery

£250 Funds for Events Supporting Older People

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The Brighter Living Fund started in 2021 to help Organisations hold Brighter Living Events for older Wandsworth residents in the month of October.

In October, we celebrate the national events: Silver Sunday and Older People’s Day. For Brighter Living in later life, Wandsworth borough council will publish a programme of events spanning the month of October as part of their Brighter Living Fair.

Submit an event for funding deadline: 20th August.

The programme will be finalised and released in September.

If you work with older people in Wandsworth, you can apply for a £250 grant to host your event. Find out more about the opportunity on the Wandsworth Council website.

https://www.wandsworth.gov.uk/leisure-and-culture/events/brighter-living-fair/