09 January 2018

West Midlands charity worker joins the Grenfell response

Meet Rebecca Clark, one of the new members of the Grenfell Health and Wellbeing Service, who has been seconded to CNWL from the Kaleidoscope Plus Group, a health and wellbeing charity from the West Midlands.

Rebecca has joined as a Grenfell Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner (PWP), following a national callout sent out by the Trust for people willing to join on a fixed term or secondment basis to support the Grenfell Health and Wellbeing Service.

She wanted to help and was supported in her application by the Kaleidoscope Plus Group, who also saw an opportunity to help those affected by the fire.

Rebecca said: ""It's been really interesting seeing the service develop because it's the first time I've seen so many people with such a vast range of background experience join together to support the needs of the community. It's quite rewarding because even though I've not been here for long, I feel I've had a say in developing the role of a PWP within the service, as it's unusual for a PWP to be involved in a trauma recovery service. Normally a PWP works with people struggling with mild to moderate anxiety and depression, whereas this is a valuable opportunity to support people experiencing distress at the higher end of the spectrum."

The main part of her role will be assessing clients' current support needs and will be working alongside two other PWPs to offer support and psycho-education on trauma to the community.

Rebecca has been with the Kaleidoscope Group for two years where she started as a Community Wellbeing Worker before then completing her PWP training with the charity. Before that she read Psychology at the University of Birmingham.

Charity Chief Executive, Monica Shafaq was only too happy for the charity to help. "We recognised that many people were in need of specialist emotional and psychological support and with this being one of our areas of expertise, it was important to us that we found a way to help out. I'm delighted that we have been able to extend a helping hand by seconding Rebecca who will now be able to provide full time structured and professional support in conjunction with the Trust."

For more details:

Contact Senior Communications Officer Jeremy Dunning on 0203 214 5756 or emailjeremy.dunning@nhs.net

Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust
Stephenson House, 75 Hampstead Road, London NW1 2PL
Tel: 020 3214 5756 e-mail:communications.cnwl@nhs.net