Health and Wellbeing Alliance

Association of Mental Health Providers joined the Health and Wellbeing Alliance [HW Alliance] [formerly the Third Sector Strategic Partnership Programme] in 2010, becoming the lead partner in a group of voluntary sector mental health organisations – the Mental Health Consortia.

The Voluntary Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) Health and Wellbeing Alliance has been established to:

• Facilitate integrated working between the voluntary and statutory sectors
• Support a two way flow of information between communities, the VCSE sector and policy leads
• Amplify the voice of the VCSE sector and people with lived experience to inform national policy
• Facilitate co-produced solutions to promote equality and reduce health inequalities

The HW Alliance is jointly managed by the Department of Health (DH), Public Health England (PHE), and NHS England, and is made up of 21 VCSE Members that represent communities who share protected characteristics or that experience health inequalities. Through their networks HW Alliance Members can link with communities and VCSE organisations across England.

Individuals and VCSE organisations who would like to share their experiences and ideas with NHS England, DH and PHE can do so via Health and Wellbeing Alliance Members.

The Consortia links strategically to undertake specific agreed work programmes aimed at benefiting the strategic development of the mental health voluntary sector. The Association has been working in partnership with organisations across the voluntary and community sector to identify opportunities for improvement in mental health service provision.

The objectives of the Programme are to:

• Encourage co-production in the creation of person-centred, community-based health and care which promotes equality for all;
• Enable the voice of people with lived experience and those experiencing health inequalities to inform national policy making and shape the delivery of services;
• Build evidence of sustainable, scalable solutions to mitigate and prevent inequalities impacting on the health and wellbeing of communities.

The Programme will seek to achieve its objectives through two co-dependent funded mechanisms:

• a national partnership arrangement: the VCSE Health and Wellbeing Alliance; and
• funding for bespoke projects: the VCSE Health and Wellbeing Fund.

You can follow the work of VCSE organisations on Twitter, by searching the hashtag #HWAlliance.
You can can contact the Alliance and sign up to the monthly newsletter for the voluntary sector by email.

Learn more about the other members of the Health and Wellbeing Alliance.
If you are interested in our work as part of the Health and Wellbeing Alliance, please email Dania.