MindWell welcomes Forum Central’s Gold Dust report, which shares important insights from community organisations supporting adults with complex mental health needs across Leeds.
The report shows just how powerful grassroots services can be – especially when they’re led by people with lived experience, rooted in local communities, and shaped by trust, creativity and care. It also highlights the challenges these organisations face, and the changes needed across the system to help people get the support that’s right for them.
As Leeds’ mental health information and signposting platform, MindWell helps people find community support alongside NHS services, understand what to expect, and see mental health as part of everyday life.
“This report speaks to what many people already sense – that recovery is about connection, trust and belonging. We’re here to help open the door for people to find and make those connections.”
– Gemma Johnson, Content & Communications Manager, MindWell
What the Gold Dust report recommends
The Gold Dust report shares ideas for how services across Leeds can better support people with complex mental health needs. Key recommendations include:
- Help community organisations grow with confidence – support them to describe what they do clearly, and work in partnership with others.
- Make lived experience part of how services are designed and delivered – create more ways for people to get involved and use their own experiences to support others.
- Let people use different types of support at the same time – don’t make them choose between NHS and community services.
- Fund community support in a sustainable way – offer longer contracts so services can build relationships and plan ahead.
- Make advice and support around safeguarding easier to access, especially when people don’t have a keyworker.
- Offer supervision and reflective spaces – so staff in smaller organisations can feel supported and not hold everything alone.
- Use trauma-informed ways to measure impact – not just numbers, but stories and goals that matter to people.
- Improve data sharing with consent – and help organisations understand how they fit into the bigger picture.
- Recognise and fund support that reflects people’s identities, cultures and communities, especially for those most affected by health inequalities.
You can read the full report on the Forum Central website.
How MindWell is supporting
Many of the things the Gold Dust report calls for are already part of our work at MindWell. We’re not a service provider, but we support the system by helping people find and understand the support available to them.
- Making community support easier to find
We are working to keep our directory and signposting pages up to date so people can find grassroots services across Leeds – including those offering creative, peer-led and culturally appropriate support. - Helping people understand what to expect
We’re working on clearer information about how to access different services, what they offer, and who they’re most suited to. - Sharing stories and insights
We occasionally publish blogs and content from people with lived experience and from community organisations, helping to celebrate different approaches to mental health and challenge stigma. - Promoting inclusive, trauma-informed support
We aim to reflect compassionate, everyday language across the site, and want to ensure our content recognises the full diversity of needs, identities and experiences in our city. - Bringing the system together
We will look to share examples of how NHS and community services can work side by side – helping shift the idea that people need to choose one or the other.
We know there’s more we can do – especially to reflect the diversity of approaches across Leeds and make the site more welcoming for those who’ve felt excluded by mainstream services.
Working together
MindWell believes in a city where everyone can find the support that works for them – whether that’s peer support, gardening, counselling, medication, creative practice or something else entirely.
Read the full Gold Dust Report here.
If you’re a community organisation featured in the report – or delivering similar support in Leeds – and want to check how your service is reflected on MindWell or share ideas on how we can improve signposting:
Please get in touch at mindwellleeds@gmail.com