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The purpose of this paper is to explore how conflict-affected communities in Ukraine (the Lugansk region) can develop sustainable mental health services in decentralised settings. The main interest focuses on community stakeholders’ perception of their problems and solutions that communities can create to achieve better mental health coverage.

A series of roundtables (RTs) (4 RTs, 62 participants overall), accompanied by interactive brainstorming techniques, were conducted with communities’ representatives/stakeholders from the East of Ukraine (Lugansk region, a government-controlled area) during the year 2021. Participants (health, mental health, social care workers and administration representatives) were provided with the opportunity to discuss mental health services’ development challenges and create affordable solutions for their communities. Results of discussions were submitted to qualitative analysis and offered for review by participants.

Decentralisation in Ukraine led to allocating funds alongside responsibilities for developing the services to communities. Most of the communities appear not to be ready to acknowledge the role of mental health services, entirely relying on the existing weak psychiatric hospital-based system. Awareness-raising interactive capacity-building activities for the community leaders and decision-makers effectively promote community-based mental health services development. Five clusters of challenges were identified: leadership, coordination and collaboration problems; infrastructure, physical accessibility and financial problems; mental health and primary health-care workforce shortage and lack of competencies; low awareness of mental health and available services and high stigma; war, crises and pandemic-related problems. Communities stakeholders foresaw seven domains of action: increasing the role of communities and service users in the initiatives of governmental bodies; establishing in the communities local coordination/working groups dedicated to mental health service development; developing the community-based spaces (hubs) for integrated services provision; embedding the mental health services in the existing services (social, administrative and health care); mental health advocacy and lobbying led by local leaders and service users; increasing capacity of communities in financial management, fundraising; developing services by combining efforts and budgets of neighbouring communities.

The study has potential limitations. Participants of the roundtables were mostly appointed by local authorities, so some of them didn`t have a motivation for mental health services development. Service users were involved only from the facilitators` side, not from the side of communities; therefore, it was impossible to include their view of problems and solutions. Obtained data were limited to the opinion of local professionals, administration workers and other local stakeholders. The human rights aspect was not clearly articulated in the tasks of the roundtables.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the paper is original in terms of its topic (connecting decentralisation and local stakeholders’ engagement for understanding the challenges of mental health services development) and research strategy (engagement of Ukrainian communities, qualitative analysis of the discussion results and applying the best practices and international recommendations to the local context).

This paper aims to review the need for and development of specialist deaf secure mental health services.

The paper is a review article; it begins by giving a brief overview of deafness and the relationship between deafness, mental health problems and offending. Following this, relevant literature and Department of Health (DoH) guidance is summarised and a description of the current UK services is given.

In 2001, Young et al. highlighted the needs of deaf mentally disordered offenders and the requirement for specialist forensic mental health services for this group. Since then several DoH guidance documents have been published that, amongst other things, highlighted the need to develop deaf forensic mental health services. There have now been substantial service developments in this area but substantial gaps remain – most notably, a lack of specialist mental health provision for deaf prisoners.

The paper offers insights into the development and future of deaf forensic mental health services.

This Overview article focuses on mental health services and, specifically, looks at some aspects of government policy that remain a challenge for managers and practitioners. In particular, new ways are considered of undertaking the assessment of need and a description is given of one initiative: benchmarking to help practitioners measure performance. Examples of new service models emerging as part of the primary care agenda are also highlighted.

The aim of the paper is to describe the “organisational lifecycle” of the New Zealand Mental Health Commission (NZ MHC) including factors that led to it being established, the evolving phases of the work it undertook and its key achievements, the critical success factors, the rationale behind its disestablishment and transfer of its core functions to another entity.

The methodology is a review of relevant documents and interviews of previous Commissioners, and insights of the final two Chair Commissioners and authors.

The NZ MHC was established to provide government with independent advice on how to develop the capacity and capability of mental health and addictions services for those people with the highest and most complex needs, estimated to be approximately 3 percent of the population. Having successfully led changes to achieve this goal as set out in The Blueprint of 1998 it is now influencing government policy and services to achieve better mental health and well‐being for the whole population as per Blueprint II, published in 2012. The NZ Government clearly values the role of Mental Health Commissioner which has been transferred to the Office of the Health and Disability Commissioner from July 2012 at the time the Commission is disestablished.

The paper relies on insights of those in Commission leadership roles.

Other Commissions may gain insight into their own evolutionary pathways and proactively manage them.

Optimal mental health and wellbeing for society requires policy that simultaneously takes a “whole of society” approach and focuses on responding to people with the highest needs.

The paper shows that there are significant concerns about the disestablishment of the Mental Health Commission in New Zealand and little understanding of the underlying rationale for the organisational changes.

The emphasis on outcomes rather than process is an area that is receiving significant attention across the delivery of public sector services, and the question ‘so what?’ is increasingly being asked of service providers. With service user self‐direction being the focus of both provision and commissioning over the coming years, there will be an increasing need to justify the delivery and development of social care in terms of the end result. Strong leadership and vision is required across the public sector if this change, in both organisational culture and service user expectation, is to be achieved.Leadership as both a competency and an organisational function has been well researched within health and social care. The literature largely points towards the need for clarity and strength within the strategic vision, especially when considering the management of change and multifaceted partnerships, both of which are crucial to the delivery of social care outcomes. The actual detail of the outcome framework, and the means by which it can be measured and quantified, is still an area of debate, and as such the aim here is to highlight some of the benefits and barriers that may be faced as the reform of the social care system evolves, with a specific focus on the impact that leadership can have on the delivery of an outcome‐focused mental health social care serviceThe analysis of outcome‐focused organisations is a relatively new concept in health and social care, and as such this paper seeks to debate the evidence in terms of whether leadership contributes to better service user outcomes in mental health social care. Dynamics within organisations, professions and with service users are all key considerations in the achievement of positive outcomes, and the role of the leader is to empower the staff group to power share and move towards co‐production in order to embed choice, control and service user contribution in the overall philosophy and culture of mental health service provision and developments.The overall conclusions of this paper are that leadership is important in terms of shaping services, ensuring governance and promoting innovation, and as a result it is possible to suggest that leadership and positive outcomes do have a direct correlation.

Partnership between people who use services, their carers, and professionals is seen as an increasingly important aspect of providing a quality service across health and social care. The concept is enshrined in national policy, but the application of it is patchy at best, and has partly been undermined by constant restructuring and organisational change ‐ both in partnership working and in the organisations set up to deliver health and social care. Partnership that recognises service user/survivor expertise and assets and promotes equal and reciprocal working between staff and users is being recast as ‘co‐production’ or ‘co‐creation’ in UK public policy. The Jersey Partnership Project demonstrates a co‐productive approach, which is being seen as a way forward for adult social care service development and design.The Partnership Project, which commenced in the summer of 2009, and which is reaching the conclusion of its first stage at the time of writing, brings together experts by experience and mental health professionals, including a number of the latter who use services themselves, in a way that is designed to map out a new way of working, in partnership, across services. The Project is due to complete its first stage in June 2010, and further stages, perhaps bringing in a wider range of community services, are under discussion, following a presentation to the Jersey Minister for Health in November 2009.This article explores the notion of partnership as both ‘truth‐telling’ and ‘walking on common ground’, allowing those who provide and those who make use of services to enter into a sharing of experiences and knowledge, and an integrated spirit, that provides a clearer direction for developing adult mental health services in Jersey. The article then goes on to consider some of the barriers to more inclusive ways of working and looks at the current discourse and practices around the ‘co‐production’ agenda. Finally, the article covers the practical operation of the Partnership Project looking at structure and learning points and concludes by looking to the final six months of the Project and beyond.

The purpose of this paper is to describe and critique the methodology used to develop a core competency framework for mental health professionals working with people with an intellectual disability and co-occurring mental ill health.

A multi-phase, multi-method design was used to collect qualitative and quantitative data, including a scoping survey, modified online Delphi, and consultation with multiple stakeholders. The implementation phase involved a launch forum and workshop, toolkit development, and evaluation strategy.

Results from the scoping survey and consultation process informed the development of a core competency framework with 11 domains. An accompanying toolkit was also developed with practical guidance to assist with the implementation of the core competencies. In total, 93 professionals attended the launch forum, and the framework has been downloaded 998 times during the first year it has been available.

Detailed information specific to each profession cannot be included when a whole of workforce approach is used. The ways in which to use the framework in conjunction with other core competency frameworks is discussed.

This framework can be utilised by mental health workers including clinicians, managers, service developers, and educators, from multiple professional backgrounds. The approach taken can also be used by others to develop similar frameworks.

This is the first core competency framework, to the authors’ knowledge, specifically designed for public mental health professionals from varied backgrounds working with people with an intellectual disability. Consulting with multiple stakeholders, not just experts, elicited new information that may otherwise have been overlooked.