The Mental Health Group provides a safe space for mental health students and social workers from all backgrounds to:
- Prioritise mental health issues from the BASW England Business Plan and actions to be taken in response to legislative and operational issues impacting on social work, social workers and the communities they support. This has involved working groups on the Mental Health Act review and Mental Capacity (Amendment) Bill.
- Uphold BASW principles on equal opportunities and anti-oppressive practice in mental health education, practice and evaluation.
- Respond to local and national issues and developments by contributing to consultations, working parties/groups outside BASW, using alliances with other groups and links with the media.
- Contribute to BASW policy development and to raising standards in mental health practice.
- Support social workers in practice by developing, commissioning or otherwise support good quality education and practitioner research opportunities in mental health.
- Provide support and linkage to other relevant BASW groups and external groups/stakeholders.
Group Members:
Co-Chairs: Mary Brazier and Anna Grainger
Vice-Chair: Pauline Sergeant
Email denise.monks@basw.co.uk for more information about how to get involved.
Resources and work undertaken by the group:
- Responding to and influencing the Mental Health Bill
- Social Work Journeys through CAMHS - This webinar took place on the 4th Feb 2025 to coincide with Children’s Mental health Week. The speakers explore the wide variety of social work roles within in children’s mental health services, working across a variety of settings ranging from inpatient roles, to community based roles and specialist therapeutic roles. Speakers shared their journeys, from being a student on placement in a CAMHS team, all the way to being a strategic lead for social workers in an NHS Trust. This session will also discussed the challenges and benefits of being an NHS employed social worker.
- BASW Response to the Health and Social Care committee call for evidence Feb 2025 - The Health and Social Care Committee are undertaking an inquiry into community mental health provision and as such launched a call for evidence in late 2024/early 2025. Full details about the inquiry can be found here Community Mental Health Services - Committees - UK Parliament BASW England consulted with members and provided this response.
- Guiding Principles of the Mental Health Act (1983) – a BASW England Mental Health Forum led by AMHP Barbara Swann
- What does the social worker bring? Complex mental health work with children and young people - this webinar, put on by the Mental Health group for Mental Health Week 2024, explores the value and identity of social work in CAHMS as well as the specific complexities in assessing children and young people under the Mental Health Act.
- BASW responds to Met police decision to attend fewer mental health calls
- Anti-Racist perspectives and the AMHP role - This exciting webinar was delivered as a collaboration between BASW England Mental Health Thematic Group and the Chief Social Workers Office, DHSC. This webinar provided an excellent opportunity to learn about contemporary research, policy, professional Anti-Racist ‘lived experience’ perspectives in the context of AMHP Practice.
- The group supported the updating of the 2009 guidance, Debt and Mental Health: Final Demand. The revised version was published in May 2023 and can be found here.
- The group supported the BASW UK response to Joint Committee on the Draft Mental Health Bill.
- Mental Health Thematic group report on Section 117 survey: Analysis of the British Association of Social Workers (BASW) Mental Health Thematic Group Section 117 (Mental Health Act 1983) Survey.
- The group contributed to the BASW response to draft Mental Health Bill.
- The group contributed to BASW England’s response to the Department for Health and Social Care’s call for evidence
- The group added its support to an open letter co-ordinated by the Stop Sim campaign to NHS England expressing concern in relation to their response to Serenity Integrated Monitoring (SIM). The full letter can be found here.
Articles published by members of the group:
- Mental health assessments of children – we must do better (February 2023)
- In a medical model, we can’t ignore the spiritual (PSW Nov-Dec 2022, PG31 - members log in needed to access)
- Concern mental health patients missing s117 aftercare support (PSW Sept-Oct 2022, PG8 - members log in needed to access)