BAMHAG Mental Health Advocacy Group

General information

Bradford & Airedale Mental Health Advocacy Group (BAMHAG) is a unique organisation providing Independent Mental Health User Led Services since 1989. We provide specialist user led Mental Health Advocacy; occupy a liaison role in relation to local mental health commissioners on behalf of mental health service users and carers; and also have a Mental Health Befriending among our other service areas. BAMHAG have developed specialist knowledge ensuring we provide the very best service possible to mental health service users both in hospitals and communities. BAMHAG is a ‘user-led’ service meaning that the majority of our staff and volunteers have had experience as a service user, or carer. This adds a passionate dynamic to BAMHAG where workers are acutely aware of how important advocacy is, many of whom have received advocacy services themselves.

Having been awarded a national award for Positive Practice in Mental Health we have also worked hard to achieve a number of quality marks for our service areas and maintain an on-going developmental approach to our work that is both innovative and unique.

Over many years and with grants and commissioning support, BAMHAG have worked hard to ensure that the services we provide maintain the key elements of being both independent and of being user led. Empowerment, participation, inclusion and de-stigmatisation are central to the services we provide and to those using mental health services. We are the longest standing service user led organisation to provide these services in the UK, and have been at the forefront of the developments within advocacy and user led mental health.

The uncertain nature of grant making and changing local commissioning structures create a level of uncertainty and instability for BAMHAG and other of the voluntary sector service providers. This is evident in that BAMHAG receives no direct financial support to maintain the core of the organisation; and all of our income is for the projects we manage and the services we provide.

As with many organisations our services are supported by a mixture of locally commissioned, and Charitable Trust funded provision, and we are always looking to maintain our services through developing current and accessing new sources of income. As a Registered Charity BAMHAG often submit applications to grant making bodies to provide services that otherwise would not be possible. Examples of this can be seen in our Befriending Service, Make Friends with Fear Project, Administrative support and Black & Minority Ethnic Mental Health Advocacy Service.