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Asian Mental Health Clinic
This is a unique service of its kind in Bolton. The purpose of the clinic is to provide Mental Health Assessments for the members of the South Asian communities of Bolton by the bilingual staff taking into account cultures and religions of the service users. The clinic started working in October 2006 and is funded by Bolton Salford, Trafford Mental Health Trust. The clinic, provides assessments, reviews and home visits by bilingual social workers and the psychiatric consultant. Clinic takes place once a fortnight. Referrals come from PCMH team and consultants. More therapies are being introduced e.g. counselling, advocacy, drop-in/day care etc. One STR worker to be recruited in the near future to provide more one to one support to service users and support them in accessing services effectively.
I regularly attend the planning meetings of the Asian Mental Health Clinic and work closely with Dr. Hashmi and Nayna Pitamber who co-ordinate the clinic. Ethnic Minority Development Working group regularly monitor the progress of the clinic. It is proving a very useful service as we had a chance to interview few service users who had been referred to the clinic, as part of our research project