News

* Picture above: a piece of art created by a young person using the service. The art is a reflection of the struggles they have in their lives but the difference the service is making for them. 

We are delighted to announce that one of our services, the North Central London (NCL) Vanguard Services, have been shortlisted for the prestigious National HSJ Award in the category of ‘Mental Health Innovation of the Year’.

The NCL Vanguard is an innovative psychologically-led service that offers accessible, holistic wellbeing support to marginalised children and young people affected by serious youth violence and offending.

The service is commissioned by NHS England and co-produced in partnership with children and young people, families, communities, NHS, councils, and Voluntary Care Sector (VCS) organisations in Camden, Islington, Haringey, Enfield and Barnet. It proactively engages deprived and excluded children and young people who fall through the net of mainstream services to create positive health outcomes, and it also seeks to re-address health and social inequalities contributing to vulnerability, poor mental health and offending.

Suchi Bhandari, Director of NCL Vanguard Services for Violence Reduction, and Steve Cook, Managing Director for Specialist Services said:

“We are absolutely delighted that our Vanguard Services have been shortlisted for this prestigious award. This is representative of the hard work and innovation from all our five teams across the boroughs, not least the contributions made by our delivery lead, Fatima Bibi, Consultant Clinical Psychologist.

We would like to thank all our system partners including the NHS, Local Authorities, Integrated Care Board (ICB), NHS England, VCS, the Criminal Justice System and most importantly the children and young people and the communities we serve - without their joint efforts to help make systemic changes, we would not get this far.

Let’s hope we can make a difference by winning!”

The HSJ Awards Ceremony will take place this year on 21 November. Visit their website for more information about this year’s categories and other information.