The Association of Mental Health Providers congratulates Andy Burnham on becoming Prime Minister. 

His first speech placed prevention, stronger communities, and investment in people at the centre of the new Government’s direction. It was also encouraging to hear an early commitment to improving mental health support for young people entering work. 

That is a positive place to begin, and it opens up a wider conversation about what prevention in mental health looks like in people’s lives. 

Mental health is shaped by far more than contact with health services. Housing, income, work, relationships, discrimination, safety, and belonging all matter. When people begin to struggle with these parts of their lives, voluntary organisations are often already there, providing support that does not fit neatly within one service or system. 

Our members work across those realities every day. Their work stretches from early and community-based support to mental health social care, housing, employment, crisis services, advocacy, and recovery. Some support people long before statutory services become involved, while others work alongside the NHS and local authorities or remain involved long after formal treatment has ended. 

Together, they make up a substantial part of the country’s mental health provision outside the NHS. This is not additional support sitting around the edges of the system. It is the support that helps people remain well, avoid crisis, recover in their communities, sustain housing and employment, and rebuild their lives. 

The Association is the only national representative body for voluntary sector mental health service providers across England and Wales. That gives us a distinct role: we represent this part of the sector fully and bring its collective experience directly into national policy and decision-making. 

Through more than 300 members delivering over 3,000 services and supporting more than eight million people each year, we have a national view grounded in what providers and communities are experiencing locally. We know where prevention is already happening, where services are under strain, where people are falling between gaps, and what helps partnership work in practice. 

The next phase of the 10-Year Health Plan, neighbourhood health, and the forthcoming Mental Health Strategy will shape mental health support for years to come. The voluntary sector cannot be brought into that work once the main decisions have already been made. The organisations delivering support now need to be part of shaping what comes next. 

Make prevention a cross-government responsibility 

A preventative approach to mental health cannot sit with one department. The conditions that help people remain well are shaped across housing, employment, welfare, education, social care, local government, and justice. 

Our members already work across these boundaries, often supporting people whose needs do not fit within one service, one diagnosis, or one funding stream. 

The new mental health strategy can begin to connect those responsibilities and make clear that prevention does not belong to health services alone. 

This matters not only because earlier support reduces pressure elsewhere, but because people deserve the chance to live with dignity, security, and a sense of belonging. 

Build neighbourhood health with communities and voluntary providers 

The shift from hospital to community offers a real opportunity to organise support around people and places rather than institutions. 

The Association co-chairs, alongside NHS England, the national voluntary sector network involved in the Neighbourhood Mental Health Centre pilot programme. That gives us direct experience of what helps local partnership work and where it can fall short. 

One thing has become particularly clear through this work: voluntary organisations bring the greatest value when they are involved early. 

They know their communities, understand where trust and access are weakest, and bring specialist relationships and expertise that cannot simply be added once a model has already been designed. 

Neighbourhood health will be stronger when communities and voluntary providers help shape priorities, governance, funding, and delivery from the beginning. 

Make the mental health strategy a strategy for the whole system 

Mental health support does not begin and end with the NHS. 

People also rely on mental health social care, supported housing, employment support, advocacy, peer networks, community organisations, families, and carers. 

Our members see how these different parts of people’s lives connect. They see where housing instability undermines recovery, where a lack of employment support deepens isolation, and where gaps between services leave people without continuity. 

They also support many people whose needs are significant but do not fit neatly within statutory thresholds. 

The new strategy can reflect that reality and provide a clearer account of how these different forms of support fit together. It also needs to recognise the voluntary sector as part of the system itself, not simply as a group of stakeholders invited to comment on it. 

Fund community mental health for the long term 

Prevention and neighbourhood health depend on stable community services. 

Too many voluntary providers are still operating through short contracts, repeated retendering, and funding that does not cover the real cost of delivery. This weakens organisations, makes it harder to retain staff, and disrupts the relationships people rely on. 

The Association’s Charity Commissioning Charter translates what members have told us into practical principles for better commissioning: earlier involvement, transparent decisions, full-cost funding, proportionate processes, and longer-term relationships. 

These principles will be especially important as new neighbourhood models develop. 

Smaller, specialist, and community-led organisations cannot be pushed further from the decisions and resources that shape local services. Their reach, trust, and expertise are often precisely what allows support to reach people who have been least well served. 

Make the voluntary sector visible in workforce, data, and decisions 

A large part of the mental health workforce sits outside the NHS, yet it remains largely absent from national data and planning. 

The same is true of voluntary sector services. We still do not know enough nationally about what is being delivered, who is delivering it, which communities are being reached, or how provision is funded. 

That gap matters. What is not visible in the data is too easily overlooked in policy, workforce planning, and investment. 

The Association is developing a Mental Health Data Observatory to change that. By building stronger evidence on services, workforce, commissioning, inequalities, and community need, we will bring greater visibility to a part of the mental health system that national policy still does not fully account for. 

This is not only about proving the scale of the sector. It is about ensuring that decisions are based on a fuller picture of how mental health support is delivered and what communities rely on. 

Working with the new leadership 

Our members are already delivering much of what a more preventative and community-based approach to mental health will require. They know their communities, understand where the gaps are, and support people across boundaries that public services often struggle to navigate. 

As the only national representative body for this sector, the Association brings that experience together and represents it fully at national level. 

We look forward to working with the Prime Minister and his ministerial team to build on what is already working and ensure that voluntary sector mental health providers are recognised not only for what they deliver, but as essential partners in shaping what comes next.