Our Approach to Mental Health
All of us have mental health, just as we have physical health. We are all on the mental health continuum – and we move up and down it depending on how we cope with the challenges of life and the stresses that it creates.
Suffolk Mind works across the continuum, from wellbeing to ‘severe and enduring’ mental ill-health, providing support & information for everyone.
The Emotional Needs and Resources
To influence our services and products, we use an ‘organising idea’: that we all have physical and emotional needs and a set of skills and resources that we’re born with to meet those needs. This is referred to as the Emotional Needs & Resources Model.
We have 12 physical and emotional needs, including attention, control, emotional connection, respect, food and drink, achievement, sleep, security, community, meaning and purpose, privacy, and movement.
To learn more about the Emotional Needs & Resources model, become a Friend of Suffolk Mind to get access to free training.
Our priorities
Our education programme – rolled out online, through schools, businesses, statutory services and elsewhere – will help people understand that they have emotional needs that must be met in order to stay mentally well.
By focusing more time and effort on helping people keep themselves well, we hope the resources of the county can be spent in such a way that the NHS is there to help you when you need it.
We will be relentless in encouraging a similar emphasis on prevention among all organisations we interact with. We will encourage employers to recruit and value people with mental health issues, thus securing better outcomes for the employees and for the profits of those businesses.
