Helen Moules, the Co-ordinator of the Shoreditch Group, blogs about an exciting pilot project on whole person care taking place in east London…

If you are a church or community leader you are warmly invited to join us at The Mission Practice on Thursday 20 March from 8:30am – 9:30am for a networking breakfast, with a focus on sharing the progress of a whole person care project currently being piloted in Bethnal Green.

The Mission Practice is a Christian-run GP surgery in Bethnal Green. It has been successfully operating for many years, but recently decided to branch out more in the the developing area of ‘whole person care.’ The idea is very simple – to effectively enable people to live “life in all its fullness.”

To begin this work, the practice hired a part-time Community Networker, working 16 hours per week. The objective of the project is to enable GPs and other practice staff to directly refer patients via the Community Networker, who can assess and signpost individuals to one or more of the many organisations and projects in the community that are best equipped to meet their non-medical needs. By strengthening relationships with and between local churches and the many high quality community organisations in the area, the desire of The Mission Practice and The Shoreditch Group is to see patients better supported in all aspects of their life, leading towards a reduction of traditional medicalised presentations.

Integral to the project is an evolving electronic database currently containing over 170 local voluntary, public and private sector services relevant to the needs of the Mission Practice population, as well as local churches and Christian projects, from which referrals are being made on a weekly basis.

While the pilot project is currently geographically specific to the E2 postcode, the model is both scalable and replicable. By sharing current progress on this whole person care project, we recognise the opportunity also exists to feed into wider discussions taking place around how churches, medical professionals and others can best work together to support those with mental health needs in our community – as well as supporting one another, including sharing resources and contacts.

The Shoreditch Group is keen to tell more people about this exciting stream of work. With that in mind, the Mission Practice is hosting a networking breakfast this Thursday, 20th March 2014 at 8.30am…

We’ll start with coffee, pastries and networking and move into a time of presentation from the Community Networker, Wilma, and Mission Practice partners, followed by discussion.