TEN YEARS OF PARTERSHIP WORKING

The Gulu Sheffield Mental Health Partnership 2012-2022

What is the Partnership?

With a Start Up Grant from THET staff visited Gulu in 2012 and the Gulu Sheffield Partnership was founded. It is a group of organisations in Uganda and the UK who are aiming to improve the support available to people with mental health problems. It embodies a two- way learning process involving state provided services and voluntary organisations/ NGOs, using a Training of Trainers model

In Uganda this involves the Gulu Regional Referral Hospital (GRRH) and in particular the Mental Health Unit, the Gulu District Health Office and Gulu University. The Partnership communicates with the Ministry of Health in Uganda and the Uganda UK Health Alliance to ensure the Partnership works with Ugandan priorities.

In the UK the Partnership is hosted in the Sheffield Health and Social Care (SHSC) NHS Foundation Trust and is partnered with: The University of Sheffield School of Health and Related Research (SCHARR) and the Sheffield Health International Partnerships (SHIP), a Registered Charity ( similar to an NGO)

 What does the Partnership do and what is the story of its work?

The Partnership has a Patient Safety focus and works with the GRRH and the District Health Office  providing training and supporting staff and in working with the wider community.

• The first grant and major piece of work involved RESPECT courses (the ethical management of violence and aggression) which began in November 2013 training Mental Health Unit staff. Its impact was evaluated by Sheffield University & SHSC & two papers academic papers published as a result. An award from THET (2015-17) enabled a team of RESPECT Instructors to be trained and the whole of GRRH staff attended a four day course. Significant changes in attitude toward violence and aggression were achieved. One of the Gulu Respect Trainers spent 12 weeks in the UK in 2018 enhancing his skills in this work.
• The RESPECT programme was inspired by the first Commonwealth Fellows undertaking the training in Sheffield and commenting that it would be useful in GRRH. During the period 2012-20 a total of 28 Ugandan colleagues have been hosted in Sheffield through the Commonwealth Fellowship Programme, funded through the British Council, managed by the Association of Commonwealth Universities. Our last fellows returned home early just as the pandemic started in March 2020.
• A community centre was built Guna, Abwoch through fundraising and handed over in 2018. This is a remote rural community that did not have is own community building. Mental health need is high in this village but they have a very strong sense of community. The building was intended to be a training venue and a source of income generation for Two Pe Kinyero, a service user group in the village.
• Listening to ongoing anecdotal reports of suicide being a major issue, the Partnership received a grant from THET for this work. From 1 July 2019 to 31 December 2020 Suicide Prevention training, to 225 health staff 136 community leaders and 18 journalists provided to staff in Health Centre’s in Gulu all achieved throughout the restrictions of the pandemic. An underspend due to the lockdown funded courses in Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) in Covid for health staff. This was later expanded into a dedicated grant from THET to address the needs of health workers and was concluded by training senior political and cultural leaders. This work was then taken forward by SHIP who were awarded a grant by the Burdett Trust for Nursing to train both health staff and village health teams
• In addition to training the Partnership works with partners to: provide a completely renovated attendant’s kitchen enabling carer’s to cook food for loved ones; the creation of a Medical Library and Resource Centre at GRRH, supported by Book Aid International and Sheffield Hallam University, two rain harvesters were installed in the mental health unit and a bore hole repaired within the hospital which now serves the mental health unit and other inpatient areas and creating a Children’s ward in the mental health unit. This provides differently for children and adults who were previously together and represent a significant improvement in patient safety.

 For more details on any aspect of this work please contact:

Kim Parker        Partnership Clinical Lead.  kim.parker@shsc.nhs.uk

Greg Harrison   Partnership Coordinator.    greg.harrison@shsc.nhs.uk

Certificates being handed out in the MHPSS Covid 19 Training

Suicide Prevention Trainers

Gulu RESPECT Instructors delivering training to GRRH staff